j^^^jffi^K 




THE SEVEN PURPOSES 



The 

SEVEN PURPOSES 

An Experience in 
Psychic Phenomena 

BY 
MARGARET CAMERON 




Harper & Brothers Publishers 
New York and London 



1> 



K> 



The Seven Purposes 

Copyright, 1018, by Harper & Brothers 

Printed in the United States of America 

Published October, 1918 



NOV 14 !9!8 
©CLA506599 



" That is what we hope to establish as a recognized truth 
in your life there; that a force as yet unknown to science 
is operating between the planes, and can be developed and 
used in your life." 

" A force compared to which electricity is spring water" 

"Some day your scientists will discover and prove by 
experiment certain laws now unrecognized." 

"If you will only believe and know that I am not dead." 

"Come, all ye who struggle and strive! Perceive once 
and forever the purpose of life. Join now the forces of 
construction, and bring to all men brotherhood." 

"A great brotherhood is only possible when its com- 
ponent parts are great." 



the class and remember the man. Forget the 
price and remember the pearl. Forget the labor and re- 
member the fruit. Forget the temple and remember God." 



INTRODUCTION 

Twenty-five years or more ago my atten- 
tion was attracted to the entertaining possi- 
bilities of a planchette, and, like other young 
persons, I played with one at intervals for 
several years. Like others, also, I speculated 
concerning the source of the remarkable state- 
ments sometimes obtained in this way, but the 
assumption that these statements were dic- 
tated by disembodied personalities always 
seemed to me rather absurd. 

At no time has my interest in the matter 
been sufficient to lead me to read anything 
describing or discussing psychic phenomena, 
with the exception of an occasional magazine 
article. Neither have I read philosophies to 
any extent. I have been always a busy per- 
son, taking life at first hand, without much 
regard to what students have said about it. 
Such faith as I have had in anything, human 
or divine, has been based upon works, and, 
without convincing demonstration, it has been 



INTRODUCTION 

impossible for me to be sure that individual 
life continued. 

After the beginning of the war, however, 
when interest in the possible survival of the 
individual was so suddenly and pathetically 
increased, and one heard on every hand of 
attempts to establish communication with those 
gone before, I resolved to experiment again 
with planchette; but it was not until our 
friend V — expressed a desire to try it with 
me, sometime in 1917, that I really bought 
one. For almost a year it lay untouched in 
its box, and when finally we found opportunity 
to test it we had no success. It did not move 
from the spot where we placed it, and I made 
no attempt to try it alone. 

Several weeks later, two friends, Mrs. Wylie 
and Miss Gaylord, told me that they had been 
making efforts, through some one near their 
home, to get into touch with their brother 
Frederick, with results they thought promis- 
ing. A day or two later we tried planchette 
together, with some success. It moved brisk- 
ly, wrote "Frederick . . . mother . . . love . . . 
happy . . ." and other detached words. It 
also persisted in making little circles, perhaps 
two inches in diameter, the pencil tracing the 
circumference again and again. This was so 
often repeated that Mrs. Wylie thought it 



INTRODUCTION 

might be a symbol, but could obtain no satis- 
factory reply to questions about it. 

My friends went home without renewing the 
experiment, and my interest was not greatly 
stimulated. It seemed quite probable that the 
words written had reflected the thoughts and 
desires of Frederick's sisters, and that the 
whole episode could be explained by the theory 
of unconscious response by the muscles of the 
hand to the prompting of the subconscious mind. 
I had dismissed the matter, as far as my own 
participation in it was concerned, when a letter 
came from Mrs. Gaylord, saying that her daugh- 
ters had told her I had "mediumistic power," and 
suggesting that I might be able to help her. 

I knew that the exceeding bitterness of her 
grief lay, not in the separation from her only 
son, but in her inability to believe that his 
identity and development continued, and that 
the assurance that he had not "gone out, like 
a snuffed candle," as she afterward expressed 
it, would bring her the greatest — indeed, the 
only possible comfort. Therefore I replied at 
once that while I had no reason to believe that 
I possessed "mediumistic power" to the slight- 
est degree, I would make further experiments, 
at the same time warning her that the attempt 
would probably prove fruitless. 

The following pages contain a partial his- 



INTRODUCTION 

tory of the result. It was soon evident that 
certain of these revelations were of too great 
moment to be withheld from public knowledge. 
In addition, while much of the more intimate 
personal matter has been omitted, most of 
those to whom these messages were given have 
felt impelled to share, in this tragic time, the 
comfort and assurance of their conviction, and 
have voluntarily yielded their privacy, hoping 
thereby to bring to those in sorrow an added 
faith in the continuance of personality, with 
all that this implies. 

To facilitate reference, and to avoid break- 
ing the sequence of the twelve impersonal 
communications forming the basis of the whole 
revelation, this report has been arranged in 
three parts. First, the genesis and rapid de- 
velopment of the individual message, brief at 
first, and purely personal, but growing both 
in volume and in import with each day. 
Second, the Lessons. Third, additional in- 
dividual messages, no less personal in their 
original application than the first, but more 
impressive in their wider human appeal and 
significance, illuminating and emphasizing the 
meaning of the Lessons. 

For obvious reasons, the names and initials 
used have been substituted for those of the 
persons involved, with three or four exceptions. 



Part I 

"That is the eternal battle, between the purposes of 
progress and building, and the purposes of disintegration. 
It goes on in your life, and it goes on less bitterly in ours. 
Help me build as we began, toward the great unity." 

" This is the battle to which we call you and all who are 
for progress." 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 



MY first serious attempt to establish com- 
munication through planchette with a 
person or persons in a life beyond ours was 
made Sunday morning, March 3, 1918. Not so 
very serious an attempt, either, for I antici- 
pated no success, and was not without a hu- 
morous appreciation of my position, sitting 
with my hand on a toy, inviting communication 
with celestial powers. I remember laughing a 
little, as I pictured the sardonic glee with which 
certain of my friends would be likely to regard 
such a proceeding. 

Perhaps this is as good a time as any to say 
that I was seeking a stranger. I never saw 
Frederick. When our friendship with his par- 
ents began they lived in one city, we in another, 
and he in a third and more distant one, where 
he was first a reporter and later a political and 
editorial writer on the staff of a leading news- 
paper. I knew that he was young, successful, 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

a bachelor, and singularly devoted to his family, 
as they to him. But his habits of thought and 
speech had never been described to me, at first 
because it was expected that we would meet, 
and in the much closer intimacy of our later 
acquaintance, because the pain of his loss was 
so poignant that no member of the family could 
speak of him with composure. I had never seen 
a photograph of him, even. 

After perhaps twenty minutes, during which 
planchette did not move, I left the paper — a 
roll of blank wall-paper, called lining-paper, 
which I found years ago to offer the most con- 
tinuous and satisfactory surface for use with 
planchette — spread over the table, and went 
into another room, intending to return later. 
But I forgot it, and only when I was putting 
things in order for the night did I re-enter that 
room and remember my promise to Mrs. Gay- 
lord. I decided to make one more attempt, 
that I might be able to tell her positively that 
I Had been unsuccessful. All other members 
of the household were away — Cass at Atlantic 
City, recuperating from an illness — and I was 
entirely alone in the apartment. 

For some minutes planchette was motionless, 
but almost immediately I felt the curious sense 
of vitality, very difficult to describe, that pre- 
cedes movement. It is like touching some- 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

thing alive and feeling its latent power. Pres- 
ently it began to move. Unfortunately no 
exact record of those first messages was kept, 
and this report of them is taken from my 
letters to Cass, written immediately after 
each interview, and from the typewritten record 
begun a week or ten days afterward, in which 
was included what I could remember of details 
not written to him. At first there was little 
capitalization, but within a few days capitals 
were used freely. The punctuation throughout 
has been added, except in cases noted. 

From a letter dated Monday morning, March lfii: 

. . . Instead of doing the usual loop sort of 
thing, it made straight runs across the table. I 
asked, "Are you ready to write?" "Yes." Then, 
as nearly as I can remember, it went like this : 
"Are you Frederick?" "No." 
"Are you Mary Kendal?" "No." 
"Are you Anne Lowe?" 1 "No." 
"Did I know you in life here?" "Yes." 
"Recently?" "No." 

"Are you my father?" At this it ran 
sharply toward me, point first, but for some 
time did not reply, perhaps because I so hoped 
it would write "yes." Eventually, however, 

1 These names occurred to me, because these three persons left us 
within a twelvemonth, about three years ago, and all were either 
friends or closely identified with friends of ours. 

2 5 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

it wrote a very clear and uncompromising 
"No." 

"Canyoutellmewhoyouare?" "Yes. Mary." 

"Mary Kendal?" "No." 

"Which Mary? What Mary?" "Mary..." 
followed by a character that might have been 
either K or H, but looked more like K. 

"Mary Kendal?" "No." 

"Tell me again." "Mary K." 

" Mary K.?" " Yes." Planchette was down 
at the lower right-hand corner of the table 
when I asked the last question, and it swung 
to the center, writing that "yes" very quickly 
and firmly. 

"My Mary K?" "Yes . . . yes . . . yes." 

Her name was Mary Katherine M , but 

I always called her Mary K. She has been 
dead sixteen years or more. Over and over she 
insisted that she was Mary K. Sometimes, in 
pauses, with the casters hardly moving at all, 
the thing would write "Mary," in tiny script, 
but round and clear. 

I asked if there were any message, and it 
wrote, "Mon. . . ," trailing off into a series of 
waves, a good many times. I guessed Mon- 
day . . . money . . . Mons. . . , but always the 
answer was, "No." Finally it wrote "man" 
very clearly. I could not get more for quite 
a while. Finally came, "Many thanks." 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

"Thanks for what?" "For knowing." 

I asked if Frederick or Anne were there. 
"No." 

"Any message?" "Yes." 

"For whom?" "Broth . . .," trailing off 
again. This several times. "Brother?" 
"Yes." 

"Where?" "Albany." 

"His name?" "James." 

"James M ?" "No." This was con- 
fusing. 

"Where?" Beginning apparently with U, 
the writing trailed off. Finally made out 
"United . . .," but no more. Then I remem- 
bered that Mary K.'s only brother was killed 
in an accident, years before she went over 
herself. I said so, and the thing began making 
loops. That used to be planchette's way of 
laughing at me. 

"Why did you say that?" "Joke." This 
was not at all like Mary K. She had a fine 
mind and was not given to buffoonery. I 
have since thought that she might have been 
trying to get over a message to some other 
person's brother. 1 

"... Can you get word from Frederick Gay- 
lord?" "Yes." 2 

1 1 now believe that this was Annie Manning's first interruption. 
2 1 had asked whether she knew any of the three persons pre- 
viously mentioned, and each time she had replied in the negative. 
7 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

"Will you come again?" "Yes." 

"Have you been trying all these years to 
get into touch with me?" "No." 

"Will you help me make a bridge between 
those on your side and those here?" "No." 
Then immediately it went back and wrote, 
"Yes," over the "No." Very curious. 

After a long pause, I said I would go to bed, 
if there were nothing more, and it wrote, 
quickly, "Go." I said, "Good night." "Good 
night. God bless you." I asked again if this 
were Mary K., and got the same quick "Yes." 
Then I put planchette away and came out to 
my room. It was one o'clock. Three before 
I went to sleep. Can you imagine anything more 
weird than my sitting here alone in the middle 
of the night, with that thing fairly racing under 
my fingers part of the time, insisting it was 
nobody I expected? Claiming to be a very 
dear old friend, but the last I should expect 
under the circumstances. It was certainly 
queer, but I am very sure something outside of 
myself was doing it. I shall try again to-night. 

From a letter dated Monday evening, March £th: 

I have just had another amazing try at 
planchette. This time it was Mary Kendal, 
writing one word at a time. "Let . . . Manse 1 

1 Her husband, Mansfield Kendal. 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

. . . know . . . I . . . am . . . here. . . ." She gave 
me several intimate messages for him, and when 
I finally said I would write and ask him to 
come, so she could tell him herself, she wrote, 
"Yes . . . yes . . . yes," very quickly. 

What do you make of this? Isn't it the 
queerest thing you ever heard of? In the 
midst of her talk, another hand took hold, very 
brisk and energetic. 

"Not Mary?" "No." 

"Perhaps Frederick?" "Yes." 

"Message?" "Yes. Mother." 

"Anything more?" "Happy." 

"More yet?" "Only love." 

Then he was gone, and Mary came again, 

writing "Miss A , messenger," many times. 

Later, Frederick interrupted to write one word, 
"family." 1 Then another hand began writ- 
ing "Annie Manning," over and over, and, 
"tell Manning." I said that I knew no 
Manning. How find him? Answer, "Ques- 
tion." I did not know what that meant. . . . 
There was a lot more, but I am too tired to 
write it to-night. 

B Gaylord telephoned to-night. She is 

either coming to New York Thursday or going 
to Atlantic City, if I am there. . . . This is the 

1 1 have since learned that this was characteristic of him. His 
letters home frequently began: "Dear Family." 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

most amazing thing that ever happened to me! 
To-night it was as if several were trying to 
talk at once. I am almost afraid to have 
B. G. come, yet it was for her sake that I be- 
gan this. It seems too indefinite and unsatis- 
factory. But at least she can be sure I am not 
faking it. Something outside of me does it. 

That same evening I wrote to Mansfield 
Kendal, though what his attitude toward this 
situation would be I could not even guess. 
We had known him well for several years, but 
our numerous discussions had never touched 
questions of religious faith and a future life. A 
man of extensive reading and of wide interests, 
supplemented by long residence abroad, he has 
been engaged for years in the executive conduct 
of large engineering and agricultural enterprises. 
I knew him to be intellectually open-minded. 
But I also knew him to be a devoted adherent 
of the orthodox Church, giving much time and 
thought to its support, and I was afraid that 
an assumption on my part of ability to com- 
municate with the departed might offend some 
deep and reverent sense in him. Therefore, 
while I wrote him fully of my surprising ex- 
perience, giving him Mary's messages, I prom- 
ised at the same time never to force the sub- 
ject in conversation, should he prefer not to 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

discuss it. Subsequently, impelled by Mary's 
continued insistence, I wrote several other letters 
to him, which, like the first, were sent to his club 
in New York City, as I knew him to be travel- 
ing in the Middle West and thought they would 
reach him more quickly in this way than if sent 
to his business headquarters in the South. 

Thus, curiously, I found myself vicariously 
engaged in a double search for a mother on this 
plane seeking her son on the next, and for a 
wife on the next plane seeking her husband here, 
and it is significant that, of the two, Mary 
Kendal was the more insistent. As she said, 
later, "We know how much it means." 

From a letter to Cass, dated Tuesday morning, March 6th: 

Another evening with Mary ! H. dined with 
me. I told her something about planchette, 
and she wanted to see it work. . . . This time 
it wrote, "Mary Kendal," at once, and, "Tell 

Manse I love him. . . . Tell him Miss A is 

messenger from some one he knows. . . . 
Mentally beautiful people are fearless. . . . 
Faith is fearlessness. . . . Mannerisms are essen- 
tial to recognition." Some of these took a long 
time to work out. 

H. asked, "Do you mind my being here?" 

"Excellent portent." 

I asked why. "Intellectual interest." 
11 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

H. said, "You mean that you are glad to 
have intelligent people interested?" "Yes." 

When we were talking about H.'s interest, it 
wrote, " Tell others." This was repeated several 
times. "I am a missionary," came as clearly as 
I have written it here. We asked if she meant a 
missionary from that life to this. " Yes." At the 
end she again urged H. to tell others. I laughed, 
saying, "Tell as many others as you like about 
the experience, but don't tell too many that it 
came through me." "Sorry." 

"Sorry that I am unwilling to be over- 
whelmed by a flood of curiosity and hysteria?" 
"Sorrow." I said I would be glad to help 
people in sorrow. "Sorrowful people suffer." 
Isn't that like Mary Kendal? 

When H. was leaving, it wrote: "Good 
night. Tell others." 

After she had gone I went back, and got 
another movement entirely. "Frederick?" 
"Yes." He seems to have more difficulty in 
writing than she does. Is very clear at first, 
but becomes illegible sooner. 

"Do you know that your mother is coming?" 
"Yes. . . . Wish to make her at peace." I said 
I wished to make her at peace, too, and would 
do all I could, and he wrote, "Thank you." 

As has been said, Cass had been ill, and his 
12 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

improvement after going to Atlantic City had 
not been as rapid as we had hoped it might 
be. A letter received from him on Tuesday 
reported a slight relapse, and promised a tele- 
gram on Wednesday. It had been arranged 
that I should join him if he needed me. 

From a letter dated Wednesday evening, March 6th: 

Your letter and wire both came after four, 
though the letters usually arrive with the first 
mail in the morning. I was getting a little 
anxious. Went to planchette and asked Mary 
Kendal whether she knew anything about you. 
She said you were better to-day and that a 
letter was coming, but that I must go to 
Atlantic City. 1 

Frederick also came, seeming very anxious 
lest the meeting with his mother fail. Wrote 
"message" several times, and by dint of some 
questioning I found it was not a message he 
wished to send, but one he wished me to send 
to her about coming at once. Wrote of her 
"mental anguish," an expression I never 
should have used myself, and wanted her to 
join me at Atlantic City. Knew nothing about 
you, but was keen to meet her. 

Later, he seemed to go, and Mary Kendal 

1 Several hours later I read Cass's letter and telegram to his 
physician, who advised me to go at once to Atlantic City. 
13 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

wrote a little. Then came something very- 
hard to get. Over and over we tried. "Com 
. . . come . . . comf . . . comp. ..." I suggested 
various words. Always the answer was "No." 
Finally, very clearly and slowly, "Comfort 
dear Mother." After the M of the last word 
I expected Manse, as I thought Mary was still 
writing. When it proved to be "Mother," I 
said, "Is this Frederick?" "Yes." I prom- 
ised again to do all I could. He wrote, 
"Thank you," and went. 

It is an amazing experience! . . . To sit all 
alone here and have that foolish toy move 
firmly and definitely under my hands, write 
things I have to puzzle out, sign names of 
persons who are what we call "dead," and 
beg me to send messages to those they love — 
all this is startling and deeply impressive. 
Deeply moving. 

The next day I joined Cass at Atlantic City. 
He had never seen a planchette used, and 
was much interested in the whole matter. In 
the evening we experimented, and "Mary 
Kendal" was written at once. 

He exclaimed, "God bless you, Marv Ken- 
dal!" 

"God bless you, too. Tell Manse I love 
him. Don't fail to tell him that," During 

14 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

all the preceding days this had been her constant 
plea. Repeatedly I assured her that I had told 
him, and as often she urged, "Tell him again." 

Then came a strong, brisk movement, to and 
fro, for a space of about five inches. I asked 
if this were Frederick, and received an affirma- 
tive answer, after which planchette ran about, 
as if in uncontrollable excitement, presently 
pausing to write: 

"You are a trump!" We laughed, and he 
added, "You bet!" 

As we had never known Frederick, and were 
unaware at that time of the continuance of 
what some one familiar with this experience 
has defined as "the subtleties of personality," 
this enthusiastic use of slang was startling. 

When I asked if he had thought I would 
fail him, he replied, "No, but I was afraid 
Mother would not come." 

[The next day Mrs. Gaylord told me that 
when Frederick begged me, on Wednesday, 
to send her a message about coming at once, 
she had almost decided to postpone her visit 
until after our return to New York.] 

More running about followed, during which 
Cass said that it was a pity to obliterate the 
earlier messages in that way. Planchette then 
swung back to a clear space and wrote clearly, 
"Mother is coming!" Beneath this, the bow- 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

knot flourish we have since learned to associate 
with Frederick. 

"You are a brick!" was a later comment. 
When Cass said he had thought the last word 
would be friend, Frederick concluded: "Friend, 
too. Thank you a million times." 

An interesting, but rather confusing, feature 
of these earlier communications was the con- 
stant interruption by Annie Manning. On all 
occasions, frequently even breaking into mes- 
sages from some other person, she wrote her 
name and her one request,"Tell Manning." Dur- 
ing this period, also, I repeatedly asked Frederick 
to give me a message for his father, and was 
unable to account for his invariable refusal. 

Once, I asked Mary Kendal if she had no 
message for me, personally, and she returned, 
"Yes, believe," which seemed, at the mo- 
ment, somewhat cryptic, though the relation 
of my faith to the full development of this 
intercourse was afterward explained. 

Thursday night, at the end of the fifth day, 
I was fairly certain that I had established 
communication with three definite and recog- 
nizable personalities on the next plane, but 
I dreaded Mrs. Gaylord's arrival the following 
day, lest these fragmentary messages fail either 
to convince or to comfort her. 

16 



II 



The next morning, Friday, March 8th, be- 
fore giving Frederick an opportunity to com- 
municate with his mother, I read her my 
letters to Cass, wishing her to know just what 
had occurred and my attitude toward it. 
Then we turned to planchette. 

From this point, the account is taken from 
the original manuscript. At first we did not 
realize the importance of writing in our ques- 
tions, some of which we were unable to re- 
member later. During those first days, also, 
the messages were sometimes confused by 
other messages written over them, or by lines 
and circles done in apparent excitement and 
joy, and were impossible to decipher afterward. 

Frederick's writing, from the first moment 
with his mother, was quick and firm — at that 
time the most rapid and consecutive I had 
ever seen done through planchette, although 
in comparison with later communications these 
were slow and fragmentary. 

"Mother dearest," he began, immediately, 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

without question or comment from either 
of us. 

She told me that this had been his name 
for her, which I had not known. He went on, 
writing eagerly, with brief pauses between 
phrases. 

"I am here, dearest. . . . Just believe. . . . 
Mother, you do believe, don't you? . . . Tell 
me you do." 

After replying to some questions, he began 
making the small circles first noticed during 
the preliminary episode when his sisters were 
in New York. I asked what they meant. 

"Joy. . . . Don't fail to make her believe." 
I reminded him that this was his responsibility, 
and he added, "You and I." 

A question of which there is no record 
drew this reply: "Yes, busy every minute. 
. . . Work is so interesting. ... I love you just 
the same. . . . Go home when I can. . . . Tell 
Dad I am with him . . . helping all I can ... I 
am so glad you came. ... I was afraid you 
would not. ... Go home in peace, Mother 
dearest. I am alive and happy and busy and 
well." 

She said it was like him to sum it all up 
that way. 

"Of course it is like me. It is 'me.'" 

Some personal comment concerning members 

18 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

of the family followed, in the midst of which 
Annie Manning interrupted with her invari- 
able, "Tell Manning." Asked if she had any 
connection with the Gaylord family, she said, 
"No, good-by," and Frederick resumed his 
sentence where it had been broken off. 

Throughout this and subsequent interviews 
Mrs. Gaylord and I kept up a running conver- 
sation, impossible to reproduce here — my hand 
still resting on planchette — to which Frederick 
frequently contributed a remark, precisely as 
if he had been present in the flesh. Again, he 
would break a pause by addressing some 
characteristic statement or appeal to his moth- 
er, sometimes, she told me afterward, answer- 
ing her unspoken thought. 

Over and over he begged her to say that 
she was convinced of his presence and identity, 
and at last she gave him this assurance. 

"Oh, thank God!" He made strong circles, 
before running up to a clear space some inches 
above, to add, "Tell Dad." 

For the first time, a possible explanation of 
his inexorable refusal to give me a message 
for his father occurred to me, and when I 
asked, he said, "Yes, I want to reach them 
through her." 

He told her not to think of him as he had 
been during the months of his last illness, say- 

19 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

ing: "Forget all that. It is over, and I am 
well and strong, and happier than ever — now." 
When we wondered whether it had distressed 
him to be unable to communicate with his 
family, he said, "Yes, I needed that." 

"Will you talk every day, you and she?" 
he asked, presently. "Thank you." 

"Mrs. Gaylord, Frederick is a fine force," 
followed immediately, in a more running 
script, and when I said this must be Mary 
Kendal, the answer was: "Yes. Tell Manse 
I love him. . . . Tell him again." 

"He doesn't need to be told that," I as- 
sured her, as I had so many times before. 

And again she returned: "Yes, he does. 
There are reasons. Tell him." I promised 
to write to him once more, and she continued: 
"Mrs. Gaylord, Frederick wants you to be 
sure that he is doing more here than he could 
there. You should not grieve for that, should 
you? You have a fearless mind in other 
things. Trust for that. Good-by." 

"Mother dearest, that was Mrs. Kendal," 
Frederick resumed, with his more vigorous 
movement. "She is a missionary, and a fine 
force." 

Noticing the repetition of this word, I 
asked, "You say force, not spirit?" 

"No, force is what moves things." 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

To his mother's inquiry about a friend, he 
replied: "He is here with me, working. Bob's 
little girl is here, too." She told me that a 
medium visited by his sisters had described 
him with a little girl, saying that he wanted 
them to "tell Bob." [I had heard this from 
them, also, and the subject recurred later.] 

"Yes," he acquiesced. "Same child." 

When she expressed her belief that he was 
still alive and growing, promising that she 
would be happier in future, he said: "Thank 
you, Mother dearest. That is all I need. 
Tell Dad to be happy, too. I am with him. 
He has not lost a son. I am better and bigger 
and more useful than I ever could have been 
there, but I have been sorry you suffered so 
much." 

"Have you been trying recently to let us 
know you were with us?" she inquired. 

"Yes, for months. At first I could not." 

He said that Mary Kendal had found him 
for us, and when I mentioned that Mary K. 
had come first to me, he explained: "Yes, she 
is more used to it. She found Mrs. Kendal, 
and she told me." 

"You had better get your lunch," he sug- 
gested, after a pause, rousing us from our 
complete absorption to a consciousness that it 
was late. Mrs. Gaylord denied being hungry, 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

but he warned her — characteristically,, I 
learned afterward, "You will have a headache, 
Mother dearest, if you don't." 

After luncheon we went out for a walk, and 
then to our respective rooms to rest, the morn- 
ing having been fatiguing in its emotional 
strain. Planchette and paper had been left 
in Mrs. Gay lord's room, and in the afternoon, 
while Cass and I were still alone, I picked up 
a lead-pencil and placed its point on a sheet 
of letter-paper, expecting no response. To my 
great surprise, I was conscious almost instantly 
of its vitality. The sensation is comparable to 
that of holding a quiet, live bird, wrapped in a 
handkerchief, its energy muffled but palpable. 
Sometimes this sensation of a current from 
without is communicated to the hand and 
arm, sometimes only to the fingers. 

In a short time the pencil moved, writing, 
"Mary Kendal," followed by the usual mes- 
sages for Manse. 

Cass asked whether it annoyed them to be 
questioned, or interfered with things they 
might wish to tell us. 

"No, it does not interfere. We are here to 
tell you what we can, but we cannot tell 
everything. . . . You have the right to know 
what we can tell you. . . . You are getting nearer 
the big things every day." This made Cass 

22 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

wonder whether "the big things" would come 
to us in this life or the next, and she added: 
"Both. You begin there and keep on grow- 
ing. As soon as you are ready, big truths are 
shown to you." 

Addressing me, he made some allusion to 
what "she" had said, suggesting that it seemed 
to support a theory he had once held, that this 
world is one of elimination. 

"No, it is one _of growth ," was her answer. 
"And 'she' is trying to tell you that g rowth 
begins th ere and does not stop . It goes on 
and on, as long as you are worthy." 

"Then un worthiness kills?" 

"It does not kill. It defers." 

Weeks afterward, it was interesting to turn 
back to these early pages of the record and 
find how much of the wide significance of 
later revelations had been foreshadowed from 
the first. 

"Are you as eager for this communication 
as we are?" 

"We are more eager, because we know how 
much it means. We know that more truth 
can be taught this way than any other." 

Cass turned to Mrs. Gaylord, who had re- 
joined us, saying that this seemed to imply 
that they were our superiors. 

"No, we are your elders," said Mary Kendal. 

23 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

As has generally been the case during these 
interviews, we were talking among ourselves, 
frequently going on with our conversation while 
the pencil wrote. Some one wondered how or 
why they had time or desire to leave their pre- 
sumably more important work to talk to us. 

"Because we are all humans, after all," Mary 
responded, "and it is our work to help, just as 
it is yours. Many people do not want to 
help, here or there. . . . This life is just a con- 
tinuation of yours under happier conditions." 

"Are you happier there than you were 
here, Mary?" 

"Yes, except for Manse." 

Mrs. Gaylord asked whether a man who had 
loved books, and had always kept himself 
surrounded by them in this life, would find 
that interest there. 

"No," Mary said, "but we have its equiva- 
lent interes t." 

Mrs. Gaylord then explained that the medi- 
um already mentioned had described Frederick 
to his sisters as surrounded by books. 

"He told her that to identify himself, as 
characteristic." 

[In this connection, an incident occurring 
three months later is interesting. 

[One night, about the middle of June, a 
group of us had been talking for some time, 

24 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

through my pencil, with friends on the next 
plane, when one of the women announced that 
she could see distinctly a large man's hand 
resting upon the hand of a man present. 

[The person in question — a hard-headed, 
practical business man, successfully conduct- 
ing large affairs — looked startled, saying that 
he had noticed a peculiar sensation in that 
hand, and asked whether a friend, whom he 
named, was actually present. 

["Yes," was the reply through the pencil. 

"R saw. I manifested physical attributes 

for a minute. I have no hands, but I can 
imagine them and project them in your minds, 
occasionally." 

[No one else saw the hand, and at no other 
time in my experience has anything of this 
kind occurred.] 

I asked Mary Kendal whether they pre- 
ferred planchette or pencil, and she said, "It is 
easier for us this way." Therefore, except on 
one memorable occasion, all later writing has 
been done with a pencil. 

For the information of persons interested in 
physical details, it may be explained that I 
generally use a long pencil, which is held erect, 
almost at right angles to the paper, the ringers 
clasping it lightly two or three inches from its 
point, the hand and arm entirely unsupported. 

25 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

In the very rapid writing that has sometimes 
been done, and occasionally in moments of 
great eagerness or emotion, the force propelling 
the pencil — which seems to be applied some- 
times above, sometimes below my hand — has 
forced it to a sharply acute angle in relation 
to the surface of the paper. From the first, 
I have used right and left hands alternately, 
and the writing, with exceptions so few as to 
be negligible, has been done in rather large 
script on wall-paper, many rolls of which have 
been covered. 

One of the exceptions to the use of wall- 
paper was this first experiment with a pencil, 
when loose sheets of letter-paper were used, 
and as many of them were missing when I 
tried to assemble them the next day, much 
of this interview has been lost. 

"Frederick, shall we ever have our holidays 
again?" Mrs. Gaylord asked, in the evening. 

"Just as many holidays as you will take," 
he replied. "I am always there on high days 
and holidays. Why leave me out?" This was 
the first time he made an interrogation point. 
It was traced slowly and with great precision, 
as if to emphasize his inquiry. 

His mother then explained to us that the 
celebration of certain festivals, which had al- 
ways been days of family reunion, notably 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

Christmas and Easter, had been impossible to 
them since his death. Shortly afterward he 
expanded this theme. 

That night Mrs. Gaylord telegraphed to her 
husband that she had received messages for 
him and for the family. She said, as other 
members of the family have said since, that 
there was in everything Frederick had written a 
familiar and convincing sense of his personality, 
a quality which we were unable to recognize, 
never having known him. 

The next day he announced, buoyantly: 
"Mother dearest, I am here. Thank you for 
wiring Dad. Made him happier." 

Greatly comforted by the conviction of her 
son's continued life and development and de- 
votion, Mrs. Gaylord's thought was already 
turning to other bereaved and suffering moth- 
ers, and more than once she expressed her 
desire to share with them her new knowledge, 
urging me to make preparations for the pub- 
lication of the messages she was sure Frederick 
would give us, to which, for personal reasons, 
I demurred. We asked Frederick whether he 
thought it should be published, and he replied 
in the affirmative. After some discussion, 
leaving me still uneonvinced, he resumed his 
appeal to his mother. 

"You will be happy now, won't you? You 

27 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

can't be sorry I am so much better off and 
more useful. I get your thoughts and you get 
mine, only you don't recognize them always 
as mine. You will now." 

"Is there any way I can know when you 
are with me?" she asked. 

"You will learn, now you know I am there. 
I can't tell you how, but you will learn. That 
is part of this big knowledge, dearest. You 
are both just beginning, but, like other knowl- 
edge, growth is rapid, once begun. You will 
meet skeptics, who will laugh, but don't be 
disturbed. This is the next big revelation, 
and you are with the first over the top." 

"Are you still interested in the war?" she 
asked, and the reply came with great vigor. 

"Yes. How can anybody help that? It is 
great and hideous and wonderful, and the 
salvation of the civilized world. Something 
had to wake the souls of most men. They 
have been quiet too long. Growth is always 
struggle. It is hard struggle there, because 
you don't see far ahead. We see farther — 
much farther — and it is easier to climb." 

"Was the war the fault of the Germans, or 
the result of world conditions?" 

"Both. The Germans had long been ob- 
sessed by a lust of power, and the rest of the 
world by a lust of ease and money, and indi- 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

vidual interests. There has been real unity of 
purpose only in Germany." When she said 
that this thought of Germany's unity had been 
much in her mind of late, he added, quickly, 
"That was I, Mother dearest, trying to tell 
you what I could of what I know." 

A long talk on personal topics followed, 
during which he referred to me as a "mes- 
senger," explaining Mary Kendal's previous 
use of the word. By this time, many of the 
messages were conveyed to my consciousness 
before the pencil wrote them. Sometimes I 
had no previous impression of them; some- 
times only the meaning reached me, being ex- 
pressed by the pencil in other phrases; some- 
times I knew what the words would be. I 
mentioned this, with some misgiving, and 
Frederick dryly remarked : "You are very sensi- 
tive for so obstinate a person." 

Referring to his earlier statement about 
Germany, Cass asked: "What would national 
unity of purpose lead to? Hasn't it elements 
of great danger?" 

"Many men feel that unity of purpose is 
dangerous, but it is up to men ... to guide the 
purpose to sane and right ends. It must come 
through the awakening of the souls of the 
people everywhere. We work for that here, 
because the growth of the part is the growth 

29 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

of the whole. You can help us and all life 
by working for that unity with us." 

This was the first intimation, apparently 
personal and casual, of that gospel of unity 
and co-operation so fully developed later. 

"Mother dearest, you are normally a build- 
er," he went on, after a little. "Now clear 
away the debris of things outlived, and begin 
the new structure with me." 

She replied that she had been feeling for some 
time that she must free her life of many small, 
insistent demands, and have time to think. 

"Not only that, dearest. You must get out 
of shadow into light. Out of mourning into 
building. Out of black into color and life. 
Out of grieving into joy with me in our work 
together. It is not that I object to black," 
he continued, when she expressed her unwill- 
ingness to lay aside her black dress, "but to 
a symbol of mourning. Sorrow is not construc- 
tive, after it has done its first big work. Leave 
it behind and go on. Can't you do that? 
Won't you please try? ... As for me, this is a 
great time to be here. Think what this war 
means here. We are busier than you are. 
There, I should be in the army, I suppose. I 
am doing bigger work than that here. Just 
now, I am on a sort of furlough, to visit with 
you. That is permitted. But when I go back 

30 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

to work I can't be with you all the time, this 
way." 

"Can you get into touch with my father, 
who died years ago?" Cass asked. "And do 
the young stay young, and the old, old?" 

"I will try to find your father. Some of us 
go on into remoter places to work, but almost 
all of us come back, at intervals. We are 
tremendously interested in life there, for it is 
the root and beginning of all our work. When 
things improve there, they are just that much 
better here. . . . Age is a matter of experience 
here, not of time." 

"Does your work affect us in this world, 
or only those joining you?" 

"We try constantly to help you with our 
greater knowledge, but some of you are easier 
to help than others." This led to a question 
as to whether all our knowledge here is given 
to us from his plane, and he went on: "Not 
all. We help develop what you are willing to 
work for, if you are really sincere in wanting 
it. Sincerity is the crowning virtue." 

We talked this over, and in the midst of our 
discussion he interrupted with a question of 
his own: 

"Mother dearest, are you getting tired?" 
She denied it, but he said, "She is tired," and 
we talked no more that afternoon. 

31 



Ill 



Shortly before dinner that night I picked 
up a pencil again, and "Mary Kendal" was 
immediately written. It had become cus- 
tomary for her to write her name both at the 
beginning and at the end of her communica- 
tion, probably to avoid confusion with Fred- 
erick. 

"Manse is in New York," she told us, re- 
peating it several times. For some reason I 
questioned this, and she said: "You must not 
doubt. He is coming to-night." 

"Are you happy, Mary?" Cass asked. 

"Very, especially now, since I am with you. 
You can reach Manzie." 

Keenly sympathizing with her eagerness to 
reach her husband, from whom no word had 
come, he suggested telephoning to Mansfield 
at his club, but I demurred, feeling that, if he 
were there, he would receive my letters and 
communicate with us, unless, as I began to 
fear, he preferred not to approach the subject 
in any way. Repeatedly, however, Mary in- 

32 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

sisted, "Call him up," and Cass put in the 
long-distance call accordingly. 

"He is there. . . . He will answer," she re- 
iterated again and again, while we waited. 

It is impossible to make a fully accurate re- 
port of this interview. The messages were 
confused and broken, and there were many 
monosyllabic replies to questions not re- 
corded. 

At one time we asked about Anne Lowe, 
and Mary said: "Anne is not here. She is a 
lovely character. She works for children. . . . 
Manse is not there. . . . Manse is out. . . . He 
will answer. . . . He is not there." 

Eventually the long-distance operator re- 
ported that Mr. Kendal was not at his club 
and was not expected. 

I asked Mary why she had said that he was 
there, telling her that this was making me 
doubt my powers of correct transmission, to 
which she replied that this was better than 
too much credulity, adding: "Manse is there. 
. . . He is out of the club. . . . He must be 
there." 

We called up the Club a second time 

and I talked to the clerk, who said Mansfield 
Kendal was not registered there, nor had they 
been notified that he was coming. Long after- 
ward we learned that he had expected to be 

33 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

there at that time, but had been detained in 
the Northwest by business. 

Meanwhile, there was much confused writing 
from Mary. "Manse is in the club. . . . He 
is not there. . . . He must be there. . . . He is 
out." Effort to write the name of a city was 
followed by, "Minneapolis recently. . . . 
Manse will be there soon." 

It was Mansfield Kendal himself who ulti- 
mately arrived at a possible explanation of some 
of these apparent inaccuracies, Mary having ex- 
plained others meanwhile. But at the time it 
was all very contradictory and confusing, and 
after dinner Cass demanded an explanation. 

Mary Kendal came at once, admitting that 
she had been wrong in saying that Mansfield 
was at the club, and asserting that she "thought 
he would be." 

"Didn't you know?" 

"No." 

Again the messages are confused and frag- 
mentary. "You must not doubt. ... He will 
be there soon ..." are among those now de- 
cipherable, each many times repeated. She 
seemed profoundly distressed. 

To ease the tension, Cass made a little joke, 
eliciting no response from her, whereupon he 
asked whether they retained a sense of humor 
over there. 

34 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

"Yes, but this is no time for humor. ... I 
am so afraid of missing Manse." 

Again she urged me to write to him, but I 
refused, reminding her that I had made every 
possible advance until some reply to my letters 
should be received. 

"Yes, I know, but it means so much! You 
will help, won't you?" 

Knowing nothing then of the tremendous 
forces of attraction and repulsion unconsciously 
put into operation by persons ignorant of their 
existence, and assuming — not unnaturally — 
that she must be able to learn at least as much 
about Mansfield's whereabouts and condition 
as both she and Frederick evidently knew 
about ours, I was unable to understand, even 
dimly, the contradictions of the present situa- 
tion, and the cloud of it hung over me all that 
evening and the next day. I was oppressed 
by a sense of my responsibility in conveying 
messages from sources seeming suddenly so 
uncertain. 

Following Mary, Frederick came again, his 
buoyancy undiminished. 

"Mother dearest," he began, without ques- 
tion, "Mrs. Kendal is true. She is a fine 
force." I rather held back on this, and the 
writing was angular and unyielding. "There 
are things we cannot explain." 

35 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

"You have too little faith. Mary Kendal." 

This statement was made without pre- 
liminary comment, and until she signed her 
name I thought Frederick was writing. I 
reminded her that she had made it impos- 
sible for me to trust her wholly. 

"I am sorry I shook your faith," she said. 
"I welcome you to this relation, and want you 
to believe." 

"Mother dearest, you know I am here, don't 
you?" Again Frederick made his own interro- 
gation point. "Because I am, and you will 
feel my presence more and more clearly as 
time goes on." 

"Do you know all that we want to know?" 
Cass inquired. 

" Not all you want to know. We know more 
than you do, and will tell you all we can, as 
soon as you are ready for it." We were un- 
certain whether this meant mentally and 
spiritually ready, or that we must learn the 
conditions through which they can best reach 
us, and he explained. "We can tell you any- 
thing you are prepared to understand, and the 
more you learn there the better you will do 
your work here." 

"Are you still interested in politics here?" 
he was asked, a little later. 

"Oh yes. But they are in a state of transi- 

36 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

tion that is fearfully difficult to understand or 
to influence now. The seed has been sown, 
but the harvest is not yet garnered. Nobody 
knows what will come of it in this country.'' 

"Are you conscious there of what people 
here call God?" his mother asked. 

"We are conscious of a great purpose. 
Some of us call it God. I see it as light in 
dark places. Others see it as power. Others 
as love. But we all recognize it as a purpose." 

At luncheon that day we had spoken of 
Prof. William James and Sir Frederick Myers, 
and later in the evening Mrs. Gay lord asked 
Frederick whether he knew Professor James. 

"I know him, but I am not sure he knows 
me. He is a great force, and many of us go 
to him for help and instruction. Only one 
other man has the same sort of power. That 
is Sir Frederick." 

"Are you with people from this world only?" 
some one asked. "And does everybody go 
there, or only a certain element?" 

"There are people from this world only, but 
it is as with you, not all people are equally 
prepared. Growth is easier here if one has 
I earned it there. But not all have earned it, 
l and the penalty for laziness is long struggle. 
... Purgatory is not a bad definition of it. 
The right to do big work must be earned. 

4 37 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

Some people have a terrible struggle of it. 
[Their?] Moral muscles are flabby." 

"Do you agree with Mary Kendal that there 
is humor there, but that this is no time for 
it?" 

"Oh, she didn't mean that! She meant that 
this particular crisis is not humorous to her. 
She is deeply concerned to get into touch with 
him. . . . Good night, Mother dearest. I'll be 
with you all night." 

"Good night," said Mary Kendal. "I'm 
sorry I upset you." 



IV 



The more I thought about the Kendal af- 
fair the more perplexing it seemed, and since 
I could neither question that Mary Kendal 
and Frederick had actually communicated 
through me nor believe that she would wil- 
fully deceive me, there seemed no possible 
explanation of the episode Saturday night, 
except some unconscious influence of my own 
mind. By the next afternoon I had almost 
persuaded myself that the repeated erroneous 
statements about Mr. Kendal had been in- 
duced, in some way not traceable, by my in- 
creasing anxiety concerning his reception of 
the letters I had sent to his club. 

After luncheon, we took up the communi- 
cation again, and immediately, without inter- 
rogation, the pencil wrote, "You are a good 
messenger." 

"Who is writing?" I asked. 

"Frederick." 

"How much of this do I do, and how much 
is yours?" 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

"You do very little. Mostly, you lend a 
hand." This is so literally what I do that 
we laughed. "You are by nature skeptical," 
he continued. "Mother dearest, you must not 
let her make you doubt that I have said all 
these things." 

"It unsettles me when I know what the 
message is to be before it is written," I per- 
sisted. "Do you suggest it to me, or I to 

you? 

"Sometimes you suggest things to me and 
I say them," he returned. "Sometimes I 
don't." This reassured me somewhat, for I 
had frequently noticed that a thought strongly 
in my mind seemed to delay the pencil, yet 
was not written. 

Returning for a moment to the discussion of 
politics, Cass asked: "By reason of our dif- 
ferent environment, am I not more interested 
in large details, and you in large movements?" 

"There can be no real movement without 
a mass of detail. Here we are interested 
equally in both. They are inseparable." 

"You said yesterday that the seed had been 
sown and the harvest not yet garnered. Has 
the seed generally been good seed?" 

"There is no telling how much of it will 
come up. There has been seed, good, bad, 
and indifferent, sown in all sorts of soil. 

40 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

The crop is not foreordained. We work and 
hope." 

"Is there anything in this life to any degree 
a counterpart of what you have there?" his 
mother inquired. "Or is it something so 
wholly new that we can't even imagine it?" 

"It is so much more expansive, so much 
more beautiful and free, that we can give you 
no conception of it." 

"Perhaps it's better that we shouldn't 
know," it was suggested; and Frederick's reply 
seems to hold a hint of humor. 

"It might make you envious." 

When I wondered what became of suicides, 
Cass said, "They probably get the purgatory 
he mentioned yesterday." 

"That's what they get; and it's a long, hard 
road back to mental . . ." The pencil hesi- 
tated. After some efforts to write a word 
beginning with p or f — we were uncertain 
which — Mrs. Gaylord suggested, "Poise?" 

"... poise. Yes." 

"Is there unconsciousness at first, when you 
go over?" she asked. 

"It depends on circumstances and persons. 
Sometimes there is a period of unconscious- 
ness. I was conscious from the first moment, 
and so happy to be here." When Cass inter- 
preted this to mean that he greatly preferred 

41 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

being there, he corrected: "No, to be free. 
But for the first weeks I was dazed by the 
bigness of it." 

Later in the afternoon Frederick discussed 
with his mother various personal matters, with 
a good deal of humor. Afterward, more seri- 
ously, he continued: "You'll do better work, 
and be more open to suggestion from me, if 
you don't dull yourself by too constant harp- 
ing on one chord. Play a little, you and 
Dad." 

She told him they had not been happy 
enough to play. 

"You will be happier now. Tell Dad few 
men are as near their sons as he is to me. 
He and all of you have only to learn to recog- 
nize me, when I am trying to tell you I am 
there." 

We spoke of her desire to receive his com- 
munications through her own pencil and he said 
that if she would "keep on trying and believ- 
ing," he could talk directly to her before long, 
as he has since demonstrated. 

"It is difficult for us to overcome doubt in 
a messenger," he said. "Faith is a positive 
force. It helps us reach you. Doubt, being 
negative, hampers us." 

This reminded me of Mary Kendal's first 
personal message to me, "Believe." 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

"Are you hampered by my doubt to-day?" 
I asked. 

"No. That is not doubt of us, but of your- 
self. It is a safeguard." 

At this point we went to dinner. Later in 
the evening, when we had returned to the 
pencil, Cass said: 

"You were facetious last night, Frederick, 
so perhaps I may ask if you have dined?" 

"I've had a feast of reason, thank you," 
was the instant retort. 

Asked whether the different races were repre- 
sented where he was, he replied: "We have 
groups. People naturally divide themselves. But 
not actual race distinction." When Cass ex- 
plained that he had wondered whether peoples of 
widely differing religious beliefs, Christians, Con- 
fucians, Mohammedans, and so on, would be 
together there, Frederick continued : " Certainly. 
Each group does its work more or less in its 
own way, but all to the same purpose." Here 
again is a clear reference to conditions and forces 
of which we had then no knowledge and con- 
cerning which, apparently, he had at that time 
no authority to speak in detail. 

Mrs. Gay lord was sitting in silence, at a 
little distance from the table. After a pause, 
Frederick began again, as if in answer to some 
unspoken thought: 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

"Mother dearest, you will get what you are 
asking from me when we are all more accus- 
tomed. Margaret is afraid to let me handle 
her." I said that the Kendal episode the 
night before had disturbed me, and that I had 
been careful all day not to yield to any im- 
pulse in the pencil unless it were very definite, 
to which he returned: "That's all right. You 
be as careful as you like, as long as you don't 
deny us." 

Cass asked whether he could put us in touch 
with a friend on his plane, one David Bruce. 

"Mary Kendal can. That is part of her 
work. Mother dearest, you won't backslide?" 

Mrs. Gaylord turned astonished eyes on 
me, asking: "Is 'backslide' a part of your 
ordinary vocabulary?" When I assured her 
that it was not, she laughed, saying that it 
was "a Gaylord word." "I'm not sure that 
I won't backslide when I get home again, away 
from these daily messages," she said. 

"Then you come to us — Margaret and me. 
We'll fix you!" He drew a circle around this, 
as if to emphasize it. When she wondered 
whether she might not find a messenger nearer 
home to give her occasional help, he added: 
"You can get help, but you can't trust every- 
body." 

The pencil was moving slowly, with many 

44 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

false starts and delays. I asked whether he 
would prefer planchette, and he said he would, 
so his mother went to her room to get it, while 
Mary Kendal talked to us about Manse. As 
soon as planchette was placed on the table, 
however, Frederick took possession again, mov- 
ing it briskly back and forth, in a space of 
about six inches, as if warming it up. Mrs. 
Gaylord was then sitting opposite me, and Cass 
to the right, some distance away. 

Suddenly planchette swung sharply down to 
the lower right-hand corner of the table, from my 
position, and addressing Mrs. Gaylord directly — 
that is, writing from right to left and upside 
down from my viewpoint, so that his mother 
sitting opposite me read it as it came — Fred- 
erick wrote rapidly and strongly: 

"Mother dearest, this is your boy, come 
back to stay." 

We were astounded. Given a fresh surface, 
planchette raced all over the sheet, in energetic 
circles and flourishes. It ran toward me, 
point first, as if it would leap off the table, 
paused, wheeled, crossed toward Mrs. Gaylord, 
retreated, darted to where her hand lay on the 
papers, followed as she moved it, and then re- 
sumed its apparently meaningless tracing of 
angles and circles. When I said that I did 
not understand this performance, the reply 

45 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

came with a whirl, followed by one of his big 
flourishes. 

"I am trying to show you that I am running 
this myself!" Then, very rapidly, upside down 
again to me: "You can't doubt this. Even 
Margaret can't doubt this." 

"I haven't doubted that you were here, 
Frederick," I said. 

"No, but you've got to believe in me." 

Again I placed the instrument at my left, 
in readiness to write, as usual, across the sheet, 
but he had not finished. Swinging down to 
the right, and moving toward the left, once 
more reversed from my point of view, he 
wrote: "Mother dearest." Then he ran to the 
upper right-hand corner and wrote along that 
edge of the table: "Now I'll do it this way, 

Mr. L ." In circles and flourishes he crossed, 

to write along the left edge: "Now I'll do it 
this way." Up then, to the edge opposite me. 
"Now I'll do it this way." 

By this time the paper was completely cov- 
ered with interlacing lines and words, except 
a narrow margin along the right edge. Sliding 
over to this, he wrote, slowly, "Now are you 
convinced?" 

We were amazed, breathless, and all some- 
what moved by his determination to demon- 
strate his presence. 

46 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

Circling again to the center, already so cov- 
ered with lines that we had to watch the 
pencil-point to make out the message, he said : 
"Now get the pencil." 

"Did I show you then who is running this?" 
he demanded, when I had complied with his 
request. "Mother dearest, when you are in- 
clined to backslide, remember that little ex- 
hibition, and ask yourself how you can doubt 
any manifestation of me that you perceive." 

Mrs. Gaylord said that it was peculiarly 
characteristic of Frederick to insist upon 
making his point, and in one way or another 
to succeed. 

"Dad won't need to see that," Frederick 
stated, when Cass wished that his father might 
have witnessed this extraordinary performance, 
"but if he does, I'll do it for him with trim- 
mings. . . . He has not lost a son in any but 
the most superficial sense. Tell Sis I'll do 
stunts for her, too, if she'll come where Mar- 
garet is, and Babe can have her own show, 
too." 

Again Mrs. Gaylord gasped, for he had used 
his own intimate names for his sisters, neither 
of which I had ever heard before. 

"Now were really getting down to busi- 
ness," he remarked, presently. "I had to 
convince Margaret before she would loosen 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

up." Cass began to explain that it had not 
been necessary to convince me, but before he 
was fairly started the pencil ran on: "Yes, 
it was. She didn't quite believe I was running 
this show. Now she's nice and amenable." 
Verily, all resistance had been taken out of 
me! Thereafter he had his own way with the 
pencil. 

Cass began another question, but broke off, 
saying that it was not fair to keep Frederick 
answering impersonal inquiries when he wanted 
to talk to his mother. 

"That's what it's all for," was the candid 

admission. "The L s are all right, but it's 

for Mother dearest and the Family that I'm 
here. . . . This isn't exactly what religious peo- 
ple call heaven, but it is life eternal in the 
biggest sense. But I can't be quite happy in 
it unless you whom I love so much are happy, 
too. Don't you backslide! Only let me have 
a chance, and I'll keep you convinced; but 
doubt is the hardest thing to combat because 
it destroys the very proof we are trying to 
bring against it. Believe every suggestion of 
me until it is proved false." 

One of us asked whether their greatest diffi- 
culties in communicating with us were caused 
by doubt or by dishonest messengers, 

"Both. It is hard to find a good messenger, 

48 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

but, having found one, doubt is apt to destroy- 
all his work." 

"All four points of the compass, Mother 
dearest." This we took to be an allusion to 
his writing along the four edges of. the table, 
earlier in the evening. "You see, we have 
not much time left, and you must go home 
fortified and happy, and glad for yourself and 
me. ... It will mean a lot to Dad. He has 
thought I was in some remote and far-off 
heaven, and he will like to know that we are 
working more nearly shoulder to shoulder than 
ever before, as we are in some ways. ... I 
want to talk to him straight." Long afterward 
one of his sisters told me that "shoulder to 
shoulder" was a characteristic phrase of 
Frederick's. 

Again sliding over to the lower right-hand 
corner, he wrote quickly, in big swinging 
script, upside down to me: "Mother dearest, 
don't forget the four points of the compass. 
I want you to remember that I am your boy 
come back. Not lost at all. Please remem- 
ber that." 

When a fresh surface offered and the pencil 
was placed at my left, as usual, he said, "No," 
and swung once more down to the right, 
writing quickly and firmly toward the left and 
upside down to me. 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

"I am going to write a little letter to Dad 
and the girls. I love them just as well as 
ever, and it hurts me to have them think I 
am not alive and loving them, because I know 
they still love me. 

"Frederick." 

Although the movement in this reversed 
writing is rapid and definite, as if great energy 
were exerted to accomplish it, it is extremely 
difficult to follow, perhaps because the muscles 
of the hand are accustomed to move from left 
to right in writing, or because the mind in- 
stinctively resists a movement it cannot readily 
understand. 



The next day (Monday, March 11th) we 
all returned to New York together, Mrs. Gay- 
lord rejoining us in the evening, after dining 
with other friends. 

Before her arrival, we talked a little to Mary 
Kendal, who was still uneasy about the failure 
to reach her husband, from whom no word had 
come. We asked if she knew David Bruce, 
and she replied: "No, but he is here, and 
most of us know what he does. He is a sweet 
force." 

When Mrs. Gay lord came, we told her of 
this characterization, after some personal 
talk with Frederick, and at once he took up 
the suggestion. 

"Mother dearest, you are a sweet force, too. 
Help me build a structure of strength, which 
is Dad, sweetness, which is you, and illumi- 
nation, which is my part." 

We remembered then his asking her to 
"clear away the debris of things outlived 
and begin the new structure with me," but 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

not until greater revelations followed did we 
understand fully what he meant. 

A little later he said of his father: "He will 
discover that I am more a force than ever, 
and then he will be as proud as men who have 
sons 'over there.' . . . Should you prefer a son 
in the trenches or in the place of accomplished 
peace? ... I am nearer you now than I have 
ever been before, but the price of that is ap- 
parent separation. Your life knows no such 
companionship as ours can be now, but that 
is possible only at the cost of apparent and 
visible contact. This is gain, not loss. You 
are questioning that, but trust me. I know. 
You can't even guess what this means to all 
of us, Sis and Babe and Dad and you and 

Frederick." 

His name was dropped a line, like a signature. 

It was coming slowly, with hesitations and 
false starts, and I asked: "Are you tired, 
Frederick? Or am I?" 

"Both," he said. "This is not the simplest 
thing I ever did. ... I am not tired, as you 
understand weariness, but it is easier some- 
times to get things through than others." 

The next evening — the last we had with 
Frederick at that time — his first messages were 
personal, expressing his desire to "talk 
straight" to other members of the family. 

52 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

"But there's no hurry," he went on. "We've 
all eternity together now. . . . Only one thing 
can separate us. If you doubt my existence, 
I shall still exist, but your doubt will destroy 
the thread that links us like a telegraph-wire, 
only more closely and warmly. So you must 
not backslide, for my sake as well as your 
own." 

"Why don't you stay on?" he asked pres- 
ently. "I can reach you, but not so definitely 
for a while to your sense, and actual speech 
with you is keen joy. Tell ©a4 . . . ." — the 
erasure is his own — ". . . . the family I want 
to talk to them, too. Let's have a reunion. 
One that won't leave me out. I want to be 
in." Rapidly and strongly, he underlined the 
last words three times. 

His mother promised that the family festi- 
vals should be held again, in the full conscious- 
ness that he was there with them. 

"Thank you, Mother dearest. You don't 
know how we hate being left out." When 
she explained that they were "left out" igno- 
rantly, rather than intentionally, he continued : 
"No, we know you don't mean to leave us 
out. But you — and we, too — would be so 
much happier if you knew we were there and 
we could know you were not grieving. You 
see, we are really nearer to you than you are 

5 53 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

to each other, and only memory tells us why 
you grieve. There is no reason for grief in 
what you call death and we call knowledge." 

"Why hasn't all this been told to us before?" 
she demanded. "It was cruel not to let us 
know it!" 

"As I wrote you the other day, not every- 
body has been prepared for the knowledge. It 
is known only to the few — those first over the 
top I spoke of. But it will be the next great 
revelation. As well say it was cruel not to 
have known chloroform in the Middle Ages, 
when it was sorely needed, or wireless teleg- 
raphy in the Napoleonic wars. There is an 
evolution of soul, as well as of biology and 
chemistry. Many fine souls have still lacked 
this peculiar preparation." 

This started a little discussion between us. 
One said that many persons had lost faith in 
the orthodox religions, thus making the need 
of a new revelation great. Another spoke dis- 
paragingly of the modern theory of a pervasive 
and impersonal energy, from which we come 
and to which we return, losing individuality. 
At this point Frederick took the lead again. 

"Don't you let them fool you! There is no 
such thing as Bergson's stream of energy, un- 
less every individual of us is a well-defined 
drop in the stream. That is all a philosopher's 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

dream, coated with poetry and tinctured with 
science." 

Mrs. Gay lord said she had never heard of 
Frederick's reading Bergson, and I mentioned 
that I had read nothing of his, except one 
article in a review. 

"I never read Bergson, either, but you could 
not live in the world, or pick up a Sunday 
supplement, some years ago, without encoun- 
tering that stream of energy." 

"There speaks the newspaper man!" his 
mother said, laughing. 

During all these talks with Frederick he had 
frequently made the little retraced circle, 
which we had been told meant joy. He made 
it again now, with vigor, and some one sug- 
gested that he seemed excited. 

"Wouldn't it excite you to get into actual 
touch with your family, after long doubt and 
pain? I am no angel, you know, and thank 
God I am not above being excited. When I am 
I will be dead!" Again he underscored a word. 

Mrs. Gaylord spoke of her feeling of his 
presence, of his characteristic personality, say- 
ing that he seemed "just the same." 

"Plus, Mother dear. You'd like me better 
now. I don't mean that I am perfect, you 
know. I've got more to learn than I ever 
knew existed, but I can see ahead now. And 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

you would like me better. ... I didn't say love 
me better," he added. 

We talked about the force moving the pencil, 
which on this occasion was very strongly ap- 
plied, though I was greatly fatigued by the 
efforts of the past few days, and I asked Fred- 
erick whether he could move it without my 
co-operation. But he said, "Only as you hold 
it." To a suggestion that he expressed him- 
self not through the pencil, but through me, 
he replied, "She is like the battery." 

From the first Mrs. Gay lord had been ex- 
perimenting with planchette and pencil, hop- 
ing to establish direct communication with 
Frederick. While placing more emphasis on 
a possible communion of thought, without 
material aid, he had encouraged these efforts. 
"Mother, you can do it, I am sure," he said 
once, "but don't expect much fluency for some 
time. I have not written except through 
Margaret yet, but they tell me she is excep- 
tionally sensitive as a messenger." 

Referring to this, he was asked whether 
others, not known to me personally, had de- 
sired to communicate through me, and re- 
plied: "No, but they have watched her, this 
last week." Ten days later, when the most 
amazing of all the communications began to 
come, we remembered this. After enumerat- 

56 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

ing some of the qualifications of a good mes- 
senger, he said: "When that combination is 
found we are all interested, if we want to reach 
our own people." 

"Are you over there especially interested in 
reaching your own families and friends, or in 
reaching persons who might be interested in the 
possibility of these communications?'* 

"Both. But if you have ever been unable 
to communicate with those you love, for months 
and years, and have known they were suffering, 
then you know which interest is keenest. The 
one is immediate and urgent, the other more 
or less a matter of evolution." 

" Shall I try to talk to some of you occasion- 
ally?" I asked. "Or shall I wait for a call?" 

"You are over the top. We shall be glad 
to come." 

"Can you let me know, if you have some- 
thing to say through me?" 

"Not always. Sometimes we can suggest 
the thought to you." 

Since that time, however, a more perfect 
connection has been established and I am often 
conscious of a definite summons. On these 
occasions the pencil starts at once, generally 
with great vigor, and almost always writes 
some message not conveyed to my conscious- 
ness except as I spell it out after the pencil. 

57 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

Toward the end of the evening, when Mrs. 
Gaylord had suggested going back to her 
hotel, the pencil made a little circle and some 
apparently aimless marks inside it. 

"Is this Frederick?" I asked, wondering at 
indecision from him. 

"Yes. I want to do something Mother can't 
forget. . . . You don't need any more fancy 
stunts, do you?" 

She said she did not, but that she was very 
tired and could stay no longer. 

"Oh, don't go!" he begged. "I'll go with 
you, but I like gassing this way." Another 
characteristic phrase, she said. 

After some further assurances of his fre- 
quent presence and constant watchfulness, she 
said she really must go. Frederick then moved 
the pencil down to the right corner again, and 
wrote, very clearly and carefully, one more "up- 
side-down" message — a touching little message 
of love to "dear Dad and the girls," which he 
signed, "Your boy, Frederick." 

The next day Mrs. Gaylord went home, 
where she immediately destroyed all her black- 
bordered cards and stationery and similar 
symbols of mourning. She wrote me that she 
felt it was false and wicked to mourn for a 
son as vitally alive and happy as she now knew 
Frederick to be. 



VI 



One of my letters to Mr. Kendal had been 
marked "Urgent." On the day of Mrs. Gay- 
lord's departure a telegram came from him, 
asking that a duplicate of this letter be 
sent to him at Chicago. It developed later 
that all my missives, after some delay, had 
been forwarded from his club to his business 
address in the South, where, owing to the 
uncertainty of his plans, his secretary had 
held them, notifying him by wire of the 
one evidently demanding immediate atten- 
tion. 

After some hesitation — reluctant to shock 
him by a bald and startling announcement 
unaccompanied by any explanation of a situa- 
tion concerning which I was convinced he 
would be skeptical, if not wholly unsym- 
pathetic, and yet impelled by his wife's dis- 
tressed insistence to reach him before he should 
go South again — I telegraphed him that I had 
reason to believe I had been in direct com- 
munication for several days with Mary and 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

others, and asked him to return via New 
York, if possible. 

Early that evening I took up a pencil, which 
moved at once. 

"Manzie has your message." 

This could be no one but Mary Kendal. 
To my inquiry concerning his reception of 
my telegram she replied: "He is startled. He 
is wiring you." An expression of her happi- 
ness followed, concluding, "He is thinking 
of me . . . and I can help him." 

"Can't you help him unless he is thinking 
of you?" 

Apparently this presented difficulties, but 
after long effort and many false starts she 
achieved what I felt to be only a part of the 
answer she had intended. "On power I can." 

"You mean that you can influence his work? 
His strength, or accomplishment?" 

"Yes, but not his heart and soul." After 
assurances that he- would come soon, she 
thanked me touchingly. 

Later in the evening she said, "Manzie is 
so amazed!" When I asked whether he be- 
lieved it, she returned: "He does now. He 
has thought. ..." Details personal to him 
followed. 

Still later I asked whether Mr. Kendal had 
telegraphed me, and she said that he had not, 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

though he had intended to do so. As a matter 
of fact, he had not at that time received my 
telegram, but he afterward told me that when 
it reached him, twelve hours later, his reactions 
were exactly as she had described them. Also, 
his intention of telegraphing me immediately 
was delayed several hours by business neces- 
sities. This is one of several instances when 
a difference of plane has seemed to enable them 
to look ahead for a limited space and foretell 
events. 

The next morning, for the first time in ten 
days, the pencil was merely a piece of dead 
wood between my fingers, without impulse. 
After long delay it moved slowly, making light 
circles, but no words came. 

I knew that Mrs. Gay lord had intended to 
make an effort that day to get into touch with 
Frederick through a semi-professional medium 
in her vicinity, and in the evening I took up 
a pencil, wondering whether we could learn 
what success had attended the attempt. 

"Mary." 

Supposing this to be Mary Kendal, I made 
some allusion to Mansfield, and was im- 
mediately corrected. 

"No. Mary K." 

This was surprising, as it was the first time 
she had responded since my initial effort to 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

establish this intercourse. She said that Mary 
Kendal was not present, and that Frederick 
had met his mother at Mrs. Z 's, with re- 
sults only partially satisfactory — which let- 
ters from the Gaylord family afterward veri- 
fied. We suggested that this might have been 
discouraging, and she replied: "Discourage- 
ment is not for Frederick." 

"How do you know so much about Frederick 
now?" I asked. "Ten days ago you said you 
did not know him." 

"Mrs. Kendal interested me in him. He is 
for justice, light, and progress. My work, 
too." 

To my expressed hope that she found life 
happier there than it had been for her here she 
returned, "Yes, I was glad to come," following 
the statement with the little circle so often 
used by the others. She, too, said that it 
meant joy. We have since learned that it 
means much more, but apparently they were 
educating us by degrees. In this case the joy 
was not hers alone, for the renewed communion 
with her brought me great gladness. 

Our friendship began long ago, in a Western 
city, whither she had come in search of health. 
Both were young, she a few years the elder. 
She was alone. I never saw any member of 
her family, and we had few friends in com- 

62 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

mon, but between us, from the day we met, 
there was a strong bond of sympathy, which 
grew to deep affection, notwithstanding many 
differences between us. She was more widely 
read than I; I more actively in touch with 
life than she. She was a church woman; I 
was not. Her point of view was Eastern, 
mine at that time entirely Western. Our 
many disagreements were argued warmly and 
at length, but at bottom each knew that she 
could draw at will upon whatever strength or 
resource the other possessed, and the debt in 
the end was mine, when her death left a blank 
to which I could never be quite reconciled. 

Her brief career seemed to contradict the 
law of compensation, upon which, until recent- 
ly, my philosophy of life has been based. 
Meticulously truthful, scrupulous in all things, 
strong of purpose, giving of her best to life, 
life passed her by with a shrug. Keenly sensi- 
tive to beauty, whether spiritual, intellectual, 
or material, she was hampered in its pursuit 
by limited health and limited means. For 
years she struggled with uncongenial employ- 
ment of one sort or another, denying herself 
the loaf she needed to procure the hyacinth she 
needed more. Longing for life at its fullest 
and richest, she scarcely touched its margin. 
Yearning for high peaks and wide outlook, she 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

lived always on the plain. When, finally, the 
path seemed to be opening before her and she 
was pleasantly established, doing a healing and 
constructive work for which she was fitted, 
she died suddenly, still baffled, having given 
the last proof of her love for humanity by 
yielding her life for it, worn out by hard work, 
combating an epidemic in a college town. 

Rejoiced to learn that at last she was happy, 
I asked whether she could tell us of her work, 
and she began, easily: "Yes, on the . . . on . . . 
on the. ..." After long difficulty she accom- 
plished it. "On the perpetual tour." 

When she had verified this astonishing state- 
ment as correct, I suggested, '"Off ag'in, on 
ag'in, gone ag'in'?" 

"That's it." For an eager spirit like Mary 
K.'s no happier heaven could be imagined. 

Replying to further questions, she said that 
it was not just luck that I had caught her that 
first night. No, neither had she come to me 
from the other side of the world. "I've been 
working on you for a month," she said. "Ever 

since V was here." It was considerably 

more than a month, but time and place seem 
to have little significance to those on her plane. 

Shortly after this Annie Manning inter- 
rupted again. It was said that Mary K. knew 
Annie Manning and wished me to find her 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

brother. Inquiry developed the fact that he 
was the brother mentioned the first night I 
used planchette. His name was given as 
James Manning, and his address, Albany, New 
York. "United States Ho. . . ." We could 
not get beyond that. At one time the word 
seemed to be "Hotel." Unable to find any 
United States Hotel listed in Albany, I sug- 
gested Saratoga, but this was not accepted. 
Repeatedly asked to write to him, I could ob- 
tain no address. 

Afterward the address was given as Albany, 
but not New York. Long efforts to write the 
name of the state resulted in "I . . .," ending 
in wavy lines. Suggestions of Illinois and 
Iowa brought negatives, but the mention of 
Indiana was greeted with a quick, "Yes." 
Vain and fatiguing efforts to get the rest of 
the address resulted in the indefinite "United 
States Ho ..." and at last I gave it up, disap- 
pointed. 

An hour later Annie Manning came again, 
but I asked her to let me talk to Mary K. 

"Here! Mary K.," was the prompt re- 
sponse. "Do you remember all the good 
times?" I told her I did, and thought of 
them often. "All the many ae . . . an. . . ." 
There I lost it. She began it many times, in 
many ways, apparently trying to get a mo- 

65 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

mentum that would carry her through. "All 
the many am ... I mean ae . . . I meant to 
say anm. ..." Too tired to continue, again I 
abandoned the attempt. 

Annie Manning came once more, making 
futile efforts to give me her brother's address. 
She finally said it was "just United States 
Home." Once she wrote, "just Home." And 
once, "Honest, that's all." 

I have never learned the whole truth about 
Annie Manning, who ceased, after the first 
fortnight, to manifest herself; whether be- 
cause she lacked perseverance or because other 
influences were already at work, I do not know. 

The next day I took up the pencil, expect- 
ing Mary Kendal, with news of her husband, 
but Mary K.'s strong, underlined signature 
greeted me instead. She said that Mr. Kendal 
was coming, adding: "On cen . . . cent. . . ." 

"Century?" I suggested. "Twentieth Cen* 
tury Limited?" 

"No . . . cen . . . ce . . . cent . . ." Finally, 
she agreed to Century — compromised on it, I 
learned later. Within five minutes a telegram 
came from Mr. Kendall — the first word I had 
received from him — saying that he would 
arrive in New York Sunday or Monday. 

When I told him of this experience he ex- 
claimed: "Central! New York Central!" 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

Which, for some reason, had not occurred to 
me. At the hour when Mary K. gave me 
this information he had ordered, at his club in 
Chicago, a ticket for the Lake Shore Limited — 
like the Twentieth Century, a New York Cen- 
tral train. Later, having the ticket actually in 
his possession, he telegraphed me that he 
would come by that train, reaching New York 
Sunday evening, but afterward changed to an- 
other road. 

This second message arrived Saturday after- 
noon, and I at once inquired of Mary K. why 
she had said "Century." Instead of her 
familiar signature, however, "Frederick" was 
written. 

Having ascertained that this was Frederick 
himself, and not a message about him, I asked 
him to go on. 

"The Family are happy." At no time dur- 
ing this brief interview had I the slightest 
inkling of what was coming. As he had been 
always so courteous in acknowledgment, the 
first letters led me to think he was beginning 
his customary "Thank you." Saying that 
their happiness added greatly to my own, I 
asked if he had anything else to say. 

"Yes. At your service. ... At the next 
large family reunion you both will be present, 
won't you?" 

67 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

I said we would try to be, and again he wrote 
his name, indicating that he had nothing more 
to say, whereupon I called Mary K., reproached 
her for inaccuracy, and asked why she had said 
Mansfield Kendal would come by the Century. 

Apparently despairing of penetrating such 
density, she replied, merely: "He wanted to 
leave to-day." Later in the afternoon she said, 
"He will be perfectly ready to believe," which 
seemed to me highly improbable. 

Some things written that afternoon came to 
my mind before they did to my fingers, and I 
asked whether she could not write the messages 
without first telling me what they were to be. 

"Yes," she returned, "but it is harder for 
us and more exhausting for you." Weeks 
afterward, when this separate control of mind 
and pencil had been more fully demonstrated, 
it was more fully explained. 

Remembering her statement that her work 
took her "on perpetual tour," I asked how long 
she would be here. 

"I shall be near you for months," she said, 
and then began again her never wholly re- 
linquished effort to write the message first 
attempted two days before. "Ao . . . an . . . 
aon . . . aem . . . aeons ago . . ." — here she made 
a frantic little joy circle — ". . . we were lovers." 

This surprised me, for it seemed unlike her 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

and was absolutely foreign to my thought, but 
when she had verified it, I asked: "Is reincar- 
nation true, then?" 

"No. Aeons ago .7". I was a friend of yours 

in ." She mentioned a person whom I have 

known all my life. Again this seemed utter non- 
sense, but again she verified it. "We were con- 
cerned in being more and more curiously limited 
. . . more and more animal." Some of this 
came readily, some with halting and false starts, 
which — like Frederick — she crossed out herself. 

At first this, too, seemed devoid of meaning, 
but after a little thought I asked whether she 
meant that we had been associated in some way 
as pure spirit. 

"Everybody was pure spirit once, and will 
be again," was the rapid reply. 

"Is this life a punishment, then?" 

"No, a beginning of individuality." 

"Does the individual continue to exist 
forever?" 

"Yes." 

"As pure spirit?" 

"Yes." 

"Then how were we associated as pure 
spirit?" 

"We were the same purpose." 

Completely puzzled, I asked, "Why do you 
say we were friends in ?" 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

"He was the larger purpose, of which we 
were a part." 

"The original purpose is not all the same, 
then?" 

"No, there are many purposes in the be- 
ginning, but only one in the end." 

"Does Frederick know all this?" 

"All of it." 

When she said good night, she added, "God 
bless you," and I asked: "Mary K., how do 
you see God? Frederick sees Him as light in 
dark places." 

"Justice, light, progress." 

"Is that God, or God's work?" 

"Tested." 

"You mean that you have tested it?" 

"Yes." 

The next day, Sunday — two weeks from 
the day she had first talked to me through 
planchette — she returned to this theme, which 
still seemed somewhat fantastic to my practi- 
cal and pragmatical mind, with further al- 
lusions to our long association. 

During the days of confusion and uncer- 
tainty before Mr. Kendal replied to my tele- 
gram, when his wife constantly implored me 
to write to him again, and I as constantly re- 
fused, insisting that she first show cause why 
she had misled me about his movements and 

70 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

whereabouts, I wrung from her an admission 
that in some way he had put her so far from 
him that she neither knew nor could learn 
anything about him, except that he suffered 
and needed her, which both Mary K. and 
Frederick verified. I said once to Mary K. 
that it was incredible that this could be, to 
which she laconically returned, "It can." 
After his actual receipt of my telegram, 
Mary Kendal never returned to me until she 
came with him, and the character of her 
earlier banishment, and consequent inability 
to perceive his movements, was still unex- 
plained. 

As the hour of his arrival approached I grew 
uneasy, and asked Mary K. whether he came 
happily or in dread. 

"Certainly with o " — the joy circle, and 
as we have since learned, the circle of com- 
pletion. 

When I asked her to write it out in full 
to reassure me, the pencil ran back, un- 
derscoring "certainly." She said further 
that Mary Kendal was with him, and very 
happy. 

"Has Mary Kendal been very unhappy?" 
I asked. 

"No. Aeons ago they were one purpose." 

"What has that to do with it?" 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

"She knew that he must answer if she could 
reach him." 

"Does that hold good of evil purpose, 
too?" 

"Yes." 



VII 



It seemed to me that if Mr. Kendal had not 
received my letters, and was in possession only 
of the meager information contained in my tele- 
gram, it was best that he should read the record 
of the earlier interviews with his wife before com- 
ing to communicate with her, and to that end 
the book containing the whole story was to be 
sent to his club before his arrival. Having de- 
cided this, it occurred to me to consult Mary K., 
who emphatically negatived the plan. 

"No. Mary Kendal is most anxious to tell 
him herself now." She told us to make brief 
explanations, adding: "All he needs now is 
Mary Kendal." 

Shortly afterward Mary K.'s now familiar 
summons — an indescribable sensation in the 
arm or hand — recalled me to the pencil, and 
she wrote, quickly and firmly: "Mary Kendal 
wants you to change your record." 

Surprised, I asked what change she wished, 
and was told to take out everything relating 
to her banishment from Mansfield's life, be- 

73 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

cause she preferred to tell him that in her own 
way. 

"Shall I show him the record at all?" I 
asked. 

"Yes, but take that out first." Fortunately, 
the record is kept in a loose-leaf, typewritten 
book, so this was not difficult. 

As the day wore on I grew more and more 
nervous. Suppose he should be more hurt 
than helped? Suppose we should fail? Rare- 
ly in my life have I dreaded anything so much, 
or felt so little confidence in anything I had 
deliberately undertaken to do. By nine o'clock 
I was in a nervous chill. Meanwhile Mr. 
Kendal telephoned that he had found my let- 
ters, which had been returned to his club, and 
that he would join us presently. 

Upon his arrival he told us that he had been 
one of the early members of the Society for 
Psychical Research in this country, and had 
spent several years investigating phenomena of 
this nature, together with various other young 
men, under the general supervision of Prof. 
William James, Dr. Minot Savage, and others 
of that group. He mentioned some of the 
frauds and self-deceptions uncovered at that 
time, but said he believed the ultimate 'Con- 
clusion to have been that there were certain 
well-authenticated phenomena for which no 

74 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

logical or scientific explanation had been 
found. 

Nothing that he said, however, indicated to 
the slightest degree his attitude toward the 
question in hand, and I received an impression 
that his mood was critical, which steadied me. 
The disappointment, should we fail, would be 
less hideous. In the end, he suggested a trial, 
and after preparing the table, Cass left us alone. 

The pencil started almost immediately, with 
a strange, jerkily rhythmical movement — due 
possibly to Mary's agitation, possibly to mine, 
but wrote very distinctly, without pause or 
faltering. It was evident at once that the 
message conveyed more to him than its words 
suggested. 

Much later in the evening he told me that 
for some time after Mary left him he had be- 
lieved that if she still existed anywhere in 
the universe she would contrive somehow to 
let him know; but as months had passed into 
years, with no sign from her, while never en- 
tirely losing faith in the continued integrity 
of the individual after death, his despair had 
deepened with his growing conviction that 
"the drop that was Mary" had been swept 
on in the stream and forever lost to him. 
Widely read in philosophies and unable to for- 
get them, steeped — despite his practical occu- 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

pation — in scientific and intellectual theory, 
lie had feared to rely upon a reunion in a future 
of which no proof had been given him, lest he 
be grounding his faith in the sands of his own 
hope. 

It was to this unhappy conviction — a con- 
viction so strong in its negation that for a time 
she had been unable to penetrate in any way 
the psychic atmosphere it created — that she 
addressed herself in those first written lines. 
She used, also, her intimate name for him, 
which I had never heard, and his for her, 
which I knew, although I supposed the peculiar 
spelling used on this occasion to be an error, 
until he told me otherwise. 

He asked one or two questions about per- 
sonal matters, which I assumed to be in the 
nature of tests, which she answered briefly, 
though not very specifically, concluding: "I 
cannot tell you anything to-night, except that 
I am so happy. I had lost you, and you are 
found again. Let me talk to you to-morrow." 

Some time later he wanted to know why he 
could not read her mind direct, and she replied : 
"You can, in time, if you will let me in, and 
learn. We can have such communion as we 
never had before, because one veil is now re- 
moved. But that will take time to learn. It 
is true. It can be. . . . Take me into your 

76 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

heart and soul joyfully, without resentment or 
grief, and you will soon learn to read my 
thoughts as I have read yours since I seemed to 
leave you. 

"Then I can tell you things that I cannot 
say through any messenger. . . . You can 
learn. . . . All I want now is to convince you 
that I am alive and longing to be with you and 
to have communication directly with you. It 
is impossible for me to do that alone. But I 
had to reach you somehow, and Margaret was 
the first way I found." 

We talked a little of the possibility of his 
establishing direct communication with her. I 
asked whether he could use a pencil in this 
way, and she returned: "Yes, if he will try 
every day, he could in time, I think. There is 
always a way for us to reach our dearest ones, 
if they onlyrpersevere.'Jl 

During a pause, with the pencil-point still 
resting on the paper, I told him of Mary K.'s 
assertion that eons ago some of us had been 
one and that we still continue one in purpose. 
Mary Kendal took it up immediately. 

"Manzie, you and I are the same purpose. 
That is the reason that, once reunited, we can- 
not be separated, except by our deliberate 
yielding to a different and disintegrating pur- 
pose. That is the eternal battle — between the 

77 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

purposes of progress and building and the pur- 
poses of disintegration. It goes on in your 
life, and it goes on less bitterly in ours. Help 
me build, as we began, toward the great unity. 
. . . All of us here are working against those 
forces of disintegration so rife in your life now, 
and every bit of retention of unity that is for 
upbuilding helps us and helps the great pur- 
pose for which we work. . . . You and I began 
working for that long ago, and each of us will 
always continue to work for it. But we shall 
be happier if we do it consciously together. . . . 
Don't think of me as far away. . . . We will wel- 
come to our unity anything or anybody who 
strengthens the purpose, but let us always hold 
fast to each other." 

Here was the first actual statement, however 
brief and incomplete, of that theory of life which 
seems — to us who received it first, at least — so 
rational, and so full of inspiration and hope. 

Referring to her phrase, "all of us here," he 
asked: "Is 'here' a place, or a state, or both?" 

"Both," she answered, quickly. "It is the 
beginning of eternal life." After a moment, 
she added: "The state is fluid; the place is 
ephemeral." 

"I believe it!" he exclaimed. "That's more 
nearly an explanation than anything I ever 
heard before." 

78 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

"This is more nearly the truth than any- 
thing you ever heard before. That's why. . . . 
Truth in your life is comparative. Here it is 
absolute, but not dogmatic." 

He said that she had not been given to the 
use of a philosophic vocabulary in this life, 
and must have acquired it there, to which, at 
the moment, she made no response. 

Some time after Cass rejoined us Mr. Kendal 
asked how much farther, or how much more 
clearly, they could see about purely business or 
political matters than we. 

"We can see much farther, but we are not 
permitted to tell you, except by ethical sug- 
gestion. Part of your development comes 
through your struggle to decide, and while we 
see your struggle, we can help only by giv- 
ing you as much of our strength and light as 
you can take. It is a moral universe, Manzie." 
The underscoring is hers. 

Out of his wide experience with psychic 
phenomena, he gave me much comfort regard- 
ing the inaccuracies and misleading statements 
that had so greatly disquieted me. He argued 
that these discrepancies might easily be caused 
by some factor or factors unknown to us, 
operating on another plane, and was entirely 
untroubled by them. In this connection, 
Mary K. said to me the next day: "We 

79 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

regard things successfully started as accom- 
plished." 

[Some weeks later Mr. Kendal suggested 
another possible reason for these apparent in- 
accuracies, using as a comparison a familiar 
experiment in physics. He reminded us that 
if a rod be projected in a straight line between 
the eye and a coin at the bottom of a bowl 
of water, its tip will miss the coin by a dis- 
tance varying with the angle of vision and the 
depth of the water. Assuming that the dif- 
ference between this plane and the next must 
be vastly greater than that between air and 
water, he argued that there might be a factor 
comparable to this deflection of ray influencing 
their perception of material, specific details 
of this plane — a simile which Mary K. sub- 
sequently characterized as "almost perfect."] 

It was three o'clock in the morning when 
Mr. Kendal left us to return to his club — but 
he went convinced. Like Mrs. Gaylord, his 
confidence was inspired not only by the tem- 
per and tenor of the messages he had received, 
but by the accompanying consciousness of a 
familiar personality, akin to the certainty of 
identity one feels in talking to a friend by tele- 
phone or in reading a characteristic letter. Like 
her, too, he said that in several instances his 
unspoken thought had been directly answered. 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

The next day we resumed our conversation 
— for it amounted to that — with Mary. 

"There will be hours, and sometimes days, 
when you cannot feel me, just at first," she 
warned him. "But I beg of you, do not let 
the doubts prevail. I shall be there, unless 
that disintegrating force drives me away. 
That's a power we here cannot fight alone. 
Faith is not the desire to believe, as some men 
have said. It is the thread that connects 
your life and ours, and when it is broken we 
are powerless to reach you." 

We spoke again of inaccuracies concerning 
mundane activities, and he elaborated some- 
what his theory that it is unwise to ask and 
unsafe to rely upon answers about concrete, 
specific things, because in translating them into 
terms of our plane we are apt to overlook some 
transforming, unknown factor, and so go wrong. 

"Besides that," Mary took up the discussion, 
"you must work out your problem yourself. 
We can only help you definitely and directly 
in the larger things that pertain to the life of 
our purpose. Your present problem may be 
solved in any of several ways, and will per- 
haps affect the [ephemeral] part of your life. 
Your greater concern, and my only concern, 
is with the fluid part, which we shall share 
together always, now." 

81 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

He asked, after some further talk, whether 
there was danger of my being exploited or 
employed by malign influences — a suggestion 
entirely new to me — to which she replied in 
the negative, adding: "Trust us for that. [Her 
own^pjurpose is definite, and with that founda- 
tion, (we can protect her fully.""} Apparently 
she underestimated the strength of the enemy, 
or perhaps she merely disregarded the tem- 
porary confusion created by occasional sorties. 

Thinking that he might know something 
about New Albany, Indiana, I told him of the 
Annie Manning episode and my failure to as- 
certain her brother's address. Our conversa- 
tion was interrupted by an unsigned statement 
that the brother was not in New Albany, 
Indiana, but in Albany, New Hampshire, flatly 
contradicting a previous statement. My im- 
patient comment was answered by an assur- 
ance that Annie Manning had recently passed 
to the next plane and was confused. A sug- 
gestion that possibly Annie Manning was one 
of the malign forces mentioned brought no 
response, unless Mary Kendal's next words 
constituted an indirect reply. 

"Manzie dear, . . . you will have entirely 
different forces working against you, from 
those trying to control Margaret, but we will 
truly and surely protect you both." 

82 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

Again, following a period of silence, she wrote 
a brisk reply to his unspoken thought, adding, 
when he commented upon it: "You see, I do 
know what is in your mind, and the time may 
not be far away when you can read mine as 
clearly. I don't always answer your thought, 
because Margaret has still some fear of being 
deceived in her reception of my message, and 
it is hard, but as she works with us she will 
learn unconsciously to yield, just as you will 
learn to detect my presence." 

"Is there anything I can do to help you or 
your work?" he asked. "Or must it be all 
take and no give with us?" 

I have no record of her reply. She began 
by saying that any actively constructive effort 
here helped them there, because it helped the 
great purpose. This was followed by a mes- 
sage so intimately and exquisitely his that I 
felt it almost a (desecration J to be the messenger 
through whom it necessarily came. He took 
that part of the roll away with him, and I am 
glad to say that twenty-four hours later no 
word of it remained in my memory. It was 
truly his. 

The next night he came again, very happily. 
She, too, was in a lightsome mood, and while 
there was some serious talk, most of it was 
pure feffervescence, 1 frequently witty, some- 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

times brilliant. Unfortunately, little of this 
may be quoted, either because of its too per- 
sonal character or because, like much amusing 
conversation, it was too essentially of the mood 
and the moment to bear translation into type. 

Constantly he exclaimed at the characteristic 
quality of her repartee, to my great surprise. 
I said that I had never seen this merry side of 
her, and had not dreamed that it existed, to 
which she replied: "You never saw us when 
we were not in trouble — before." 

"Let me in and don't chafe," she told him, 
in one of her more serious moments, "and I 
can tell you much of what I see ahead. Grief, 
resentment, bitterness and doubt are our 
highest barriers. There is no cause for grief 
in a relation closer than your life there knows. 
There is no ground for resentment in the price 
we pay. There can be no bitterness in growth 
and development together — quicker growth, 
fuller development, than could be possible if 
one of us were not here. It is largely in the 
point of view, this thing that is called grief." 

In the course of their drifting talk he asked 
her how to go about starting persons who have 
no starting-point — "no peg to hang things 
on." 

"Sometimes a bomb is effective. But the 
fragments are not always efficient." We 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

laughed, and she added: "They just have to 
wait and grow up, Manzie dear. We learn 
here that our(Jrantic haste] there has been 
foolish. Growth must take its own time. . . . 
No, I didn't!" I had called attention to her 
failure to cross a t, and she returned to it 
with a flourish. Several times thereafter she 
made a little joke by conspicuously dotting 
her i's. 

In the midst of one ecstatic whirl she paused 
to inquire: "Who ever started the foolish 
notion that there was no life beyond that one? 
Was he a philosopher, or a dyspeptic, or both?" 
And again, following some amusing nonsense, 
"You don't think this would sound trivial to 
a scientific investigator, do you?" 

"What's the matter with the scientific type 
of mind?" he asked. 

"Mostly it's pure intellect — and life isn't." 

During another moment of jesting he said: 
"I don't think I'll bother to walk home. I'll 
just float." 

"Come on! We'll float together," she re- 
torted. "Do you raise that, or call?" 

Laughing, he returned: "I'll pass the buck 
to Saint Peter," whereupon she intimated that 
Saint Peter was not immediately available. 

"Who hold the keys?" 

"You hold your own — not transferable." 

7 85 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

"You are mostly pure idealist," was another 
comment, a little later, replying to something 
he said about his own attitude toward life, 
"and got lost for a while in the dark." He 
began to say that he should hardly have called 
himself an idealist, but already she was an- 
swering. "A true idealist is not a man who 
limits life to ideas, but a man who puts his 
ideals into life." 

One otherwise serious statement, concern- 
ing the influence of "hard-headed, intelligent 
men who are not afraid to testify to their 
faith" in these revelations, was given a hu- 
morous touch by the signature, "Missionary 
Mary." 

"Do you want me to go forth and testify, 
also?" I asked. 

"No, you do it, and that involves too much," 
she replied. "Let your converts testify. You 
go on playing hermit." 

"Have you seen William James?" he asked. 

"He is instructing many of us. Some of 
my newly acquired vocabulary he taught me. 
He is more certain and less philosophical than 
he was. The will to believe has given way to 
the duty of faith. He has learned more quick- 
ly than most do, because he is truly sincere and 
had cultivated his ground well. Now he is still 
a leader of thought and accomplishment, but 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

his instruction is dynamic. . . . He is a very 
fine force, Manzie, and is doing magnificent 
work here, but he no longer smothers it in 
language." 

Much of this parting interview must be 
omitted. 

At nine o'clock Sunday night Mr. Kendal 
had approached this experience in a state of 
high nervous tension. At midnight on Tuesday, 
fifty-one hours later, he left us to return home, 
imbued, like Mrs. Gaylord, with the vitalizing 
quality of this touch with the unseen and 
carrying with him the happy conviction that 
he did not go alone. 



VIII 

Up to this time the messages, while frequent- 
ly impersonal in tenor, had seemed entirely 
personal in direction. It happened, fortunate- 
ly, that both Mrs. Gaylord and Mr. Kendal 
were mo're interested in the wide meaning and 
purpose of life than in the narrow, individual 
details of its conduct, and to that interest 
chiefly those nearest them on the next plane 
had addressed themselves. The rapidity with 
which these communications came, and their 
surprising volume, was attributed to the fact 
that in both cases the time in which they 
could be given through me was limited. 

Aside from the attendant nervous strain — 
which has been less, on the whole, than one 
would expect, probably because these efforts 
have been followed by such sound and refresh- 
ing sleep as I had not known before in years— 
the manual labor involved in taking these long 
messages, and in typewriting them afterward, 
has been excessive. Assuming, however, that 
this flood of disclosure would be diminished 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

when the necessity for immediate expression 
passed, I looked forward to leisure and oppor- 
tunity for some long talks with Mary K., 
which should be more detailed and personal 
than our somewhat fragmentary intercourse 
thus far had been. 

This was briefly delayed by requests to 
establish interplane communication for one or 
two other friends, whose need was more im- 
perative than my own, when significant and 
beautiful messages — not to be quoted here — 
were obtained. One of these slightly elabo- 
rated the now familiar idea of the close and 
intimate relation of certain persons to one 
another, because of their union in a common 
and eternal purpose. In a letter to Mr. Ken- 
dal I mentioned this, adding: "It begins to 
look like a gospel, doesn't it?" 

Finally, however, my own opportunity came, 
on Thursday, March 21st, but instead of per- 
mitting me to propound any of the many ques- 
tions I had in mind, Mary K. delivered a de- 
tailed message of instruction that left me 
astounded and incredulous. Most of this is 
too personal to repeat, but some of it must be 
quoted, in view of what followed. 

"... We have much to tell, and few through 
whom to tell it. You have the sensitiveness to 
receive and the power to convince. When you 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

have fully grasped the meaning of what we 
have to tell, you must make it known, but not 
before we give you the whole of it. You will 
get the truth slowly, through helping many 
people, but keep the full knowledge frankly 
back until it is all told. . . . Let them know 
you are withholding it, but do not let them 
have it in fragments." 

"You mean they are not to be told of the 
division of original purpose into individual 
life?" 

"No, they must have that to build on. But 
there will be more given to you in fragments. 
Piece it together for yourself, but do not give 
it to any one as long as you are still receiving 
it. . . . The light is breaking, and you are the 
aeee . . . accustomed . . ." — later she returned, 
to write "accredited" over this word. I think 
neither was what she tried for. Perhaps ac- 
cessible? — ". . . force to make the meaning 
clear. ... It is what we have long sought and 
just found. That is the reason we are giving 
you things never told before. You are to 
pass them on when the time comes. . . . This 
is your work, your contribution to the great 
purpose, which will be revealed to you little 
by little. Keep clear of disturbing contacts, 
as you have done, and keep your purpose true. 
You have already recognized this as a gospel. 

90 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

It is more. It is a faith. Be true to it and 
it will save_nmny from suffering. That is the 
reason I am here now and shall remain. I am 
the force used by greater forces to reach the 
world through you. We have always been the 
same purpose, and I can reach you freely." 
After an allusion to mental purpose, she de- 
fined it thus: "Mental purpose is the force 
that convinces men. ]\foral purpose is that 
whichj)ersuades them. We prefer conviction. 
It lasts, where persuasion fades. Nothing 
more now, but this is only the beginning. 
Mary K." 

After the first phrase, save for one or two 
brief pauses, this long communication was so 
rapidly written that I could not follow it with 
my left hand, though I made several attempts, 
as my right arm became greatly fatigued. At 
no time had I the slightest impression of what 
was to be said, and during most of it I was 
too bewildered to think clearly, my mind be- 
ing filled with blank wonder and vague ques- 
tioning, scarcely formulated, yet immediately 
answered. 

The next day she resumed her exhorta- 
tion. 

"... This is war work. It is going to make 
the war seem what it is, a reawakening of the 
souls of men. There is no higher duty than 

91 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

to make a man know his own soul and the souls 
of his fellows. The war will be justified only 
if this result is obtained. We work for that 
here, and we ask you to help us. There can 
be no victory unless this is accomplished. . . . 
Be true to your purpose and ours, and help 
us build for light and progress, against the 
forces of doubt and disintegration." 

To an inquiry about Germany, apropos of 
her mention of the war, she replied: "Ger- 
many is the united purpose of fear. It is her 
weapon and her weakness, and it is to defeat 
the force she symbolizes that we all work. . . . 
There you have the real war, the battle that 
has gone on from the beginning. This is one 
of the crises of eternity." 

Here I thought of certain past wars, when 
the victorious barbarians set civilization back. 

"Sometimes the forces of disintegration have 
won, sometimes we. But their victory is never 
permanent, because they are negative and we 
are positive. They delay us, but we live and 
work. We shall win in the end, but that is 
far away. We call you to fight with the forces 
of life and light. You can do more with us 
than you can alone." 

The following day found me still incredulous, 
and she said: 

"... Tell them that you are doing the 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

people's work, under secret orders, and that 
they will perhaps know presently what it is. 
They will all recognize it when it is given to 
them, except those souls not mentally free 
from fear." 

From this she passed immediately into the 
first of that remarkable series of communica- 
tions which she has called Lessons. Again the 
writing was so rapid that my arm ached to 
the shoulder, long before she had finished, 
from the{mcessantlmovement to and fro across 
the table, and again my mind, was filled with 
blank amazement. 

Perhaps it should be stated that, although 
I have written more or less light fiction during 
the past fifteen years, literary composition is 
to me a slow and laborious exercise. Espe- 
cially is this true of opening paragraphs, which 
generally require many hours of work. Un- 
fortunately, the time consumed in writing one 
of these Lessons was never noted, but with 
one or two exceptions, when I was too tired 
to receive readily, they were done without 
hesitation and with extraordinary rapidity. 
Also, while in personal messages the mental 
impression is sometimes given to me a little 
before the physical movement occurs, never 
during the writing of the Lessons had I the 
slightest inkling of what was to follow. One 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

by one the words were revealed by the moving 
pencil, my principal sensations being wonder 
and incredulity. Until frequent repetition had 
accustomed me to this experience^ I felt as if 
I must be dreaming. 



Part II 

THE LESSONS 

" The lessons came from great forces combined. They 
represent unity of all purposes, and were framed by the 
co-operation and agreement of the greatest forces of each 
constructive purpose, to reach the consciousness of men in 
general terms of your plane." 



March 23d. 

"A LL pure purpose is fearless, whether for 
XX good or evil, but few humans are pure 
purpose, and the first fight is in themselves. 
All this has been said before in effect, but 
based on other premises. This is the first 
time the original purpose has been defined and 
explained. For centuries men have sought the 
source of life. This is the first time they have 
been ready to accept the whole truth about 
that, or to be prepared for the next step. 

"Once convinced that chaos grew from pur- 
poses born of the Force Beyond Perfection, 
purposes perfect from the beginning, but at 
war because they contained within themselves 
all the elements of life and of conflict — once 
convinced of this, men will gradually find their 
own clear purposes defined, and the war within 
themselves will cease. They will choose defi- 
nitely to build or to destroy, to be honest or 
dishonest. Self-deception will be less easy or 
possible, and the fight will then be with you, 

97 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

as it is now with us, between forces clearly in- 
dicated. Now you are all confused by a war 
within a warj in finite ly c ont inue d. Conflict 
multlpTieTTby the number of purposes in each 
purpose. This has been recognized, but the 
remedy has never been clearly found. It lies 
in the conviction that force of every nature is 
purpose, which has existed from the beginning, 
and that the force which builds is beneficent 
and may be clearly segregated and united. 

"The Force Beyond Perfection is composed 
of all things, and therefore understands all 
things. The original purposes were all good, 
and will be again, if they can all become intel- 
ligent. They became evil through attraction 
of like for like, akin to your atomic attraction, 
and chaos resulted. This struggle created a 
desire and determination to exist in concrete 
form, to add a new force to the forces of 
chaos. That was a great conflict, resulting in 
a tie. Purposes became fused in the same in- 
dividual, and the battle infinitely multiplied, 
but yet not lost. Now the effort of both par- 
ticipants is for united purpose again, and the 
fusion of purposes in each individual makes the 
confusion greater and the fight more bitter. 
Men are swayed first by one purpose and then 
by another, and are themselves unable to dis- 
tinguish between good and evil. 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

"This precipitated the Great War with you, 
the purposes in the Central Empires being more 
nearly united than elsewhere. Their purposes 
are fundamentally destructive, because fun- 
damentally autocratic, based on fear, and 
would ultimately reduce civilization to infancy 
again. The reason Germany has been able to 
fight so long is because her purpose is con- 
scious, while the Allies fight blindly but deter- 
minedly, moved by purposes they do not recog- 
nize and yet must obey. T=hey ta lj^jofjinit y, 
but do not perceive its nature. _ They are mis- 
led by phrases hollow, but plausible, and do not 
perceive them to be the enemy in disguise — 
not the mortal enemy, but the ancient purpose, 
divided into many. 

"The light is beginning to break now, and 
the hour has almost come for the forces of 
construction to unite and smite powerfully. 
But it must be consciously, as the purpose of 
construction, if the victory is to be permanent 
or truly for progress. Men must learn to 
choose their purposes consciously and intelli- 
gently, to be definitely and actually building 
for a definite and actual future. There is too 
much quarreling about ways and means, and 
too little recognition of the goal. Too much 
self, and too little sympathy. This is equally 
true of all classes of society. Materialism has 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

been rank in the tenement and in the cottage, 
as in palace and counting-room. 

"It is a common purpose we serve, for build- 
ing or for tearing down. It is impossible to be 
consistently for both continuously. That has 
made the Great War, and that is the struggle 
that must be settled in the minds of men 
before there can be peace on earth or lasting 
and progressive brotherhood. 

"This is the first lesson." 



II 

March 26th. 

"This is the second lesson. 

"The forces of disintegration are gathering 
for a titanic struggle, of which your Great War 
is only the beginning. Had Germany won 
there, they would have a foothold with you 
that we would find it difficult, if not impos- 
sible, to combat effectively for many years. 
The spirits of free men would have been soiled 
with fear and despair, and the forces of doubt 
and disintegration would have held civilization 
captive. 

"Germany has felt her forces weaken and 
fail under the onslaught of freedom, light, and 
progress, and the forces of disintegration are 
deserting her. She is left alone, to work her 
way, through mazes of despair, back to a place 
in the sun. She must find her own way. She 
chose to follow the forces of destruction, and 
they will surely destroy her. 

"But the forces she followed are uniting for 
a fiercer fight, more subtle, more deadly, more 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

furious. Hidden beneath the garments of 
peace and good will, they make ready to poison 
the minds of men before destroying their forces 
and delaying their purposes. 

"This is the battle to which we call you and 
all who are for progress. This is the message 
you are to give the world, to warn them of 
the danger at hand. The time has come when 
men must choose consciously to fight for or 
against the [forces of construction^ They are 
confused from the conflict within themselves, 
r unning hith er and_thither, calling for help 
Irom the gods theyjiayejnade unto themselves, 
butTooking only to the pre sent good-, perceiv- 
ing only~the present purpose, fearing only the 
present defeat. They will find no help from 
these gods, for they have impotent feet of 
clay. 

"The forces of disintegration have made 
friends with the poor and the needy, and have 
fed them husks of brotherhood. They have 
made friends with the powerful and rich, and 
have tempted them with earth and its king- 
doms. They have fed the artist falsehoods, 
and th e writer fear o f fear ^ They have touched 
the priest with tainted hands, and rulers with 
fear of the people. They have entered the 
home and rent it asunder, and the temple is a 
market-place. These are the works of the 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

purposes we fight, and thus do they disguise 
themselves. Unless this can be brought home 
to the souls of men, the fight will be long and 
bitter. 

"Forget the class and remember the man. 
Forget the price and remember the pearl. 
Forget the labor and remember the fruit. For- 
get the temple and remember God. 

"Men fight together for one end alone — the 
purpose for which they live. It is hard to 
find there, in the confusion of personal con- 
flict, but the time is at hand when it must be 
found. 

"The forces of light are positive. Shun 
negation. The forces of freedom are individ- 
ual. Shun dependence. The forces of prog- 
ress are fearless. Shun fearful combinations. 
Work together as individuals, consciously co- 
operating, not as sheep. You will learn to 
think. You will learn to feel. You will learn 
to see. Then we may move on to the next 
phase of development toward the great pur- 
pose. 

"The forces of disintegration are wily, but 
fearful. Bullies and cowards. But when they 
are united in sufficiently strong numbers, fear- 
less and unscrupulous. They fear the reawak- 
ening of the forces of progress in your life. 
This is the reason they gather now, to smite 

103 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

while the world is weary. Disguised as pur- 
poses of light, they hope for welcome. 

"This is our call to arms. Arouse ye! 
Come forth for freedom, light, justice, and 
progress — consciously, freely, strongly. 

"This is the second lesson." 



Ill 

March 31st. 

"This is the third lesson. 

"When men learn that the Force Beyond 
Perfection is purpose, which has personified it- 
self in them, they will grow to feel the pos- 
sibilities to which they have heretofore been 
insensible. 

" Life is purpose. Purpose is force. Force is 
personality, from highest to lowest, from saint 
to stick and stone. Men have called it many 
things, but what it is none have perceived 
clearly. 

"Eternal purpose is perfect justice, perfect 
fearlessness, perfect understanding, perfect hon- 
esty, perfect sympathy, perfect unity, and 
eternal growth, which is progress perfectly ex- 
pressed. This is the end for which we work. 
Not Nirvana. Not oblivion. Not power stag- 
nant and powerless. But a perfect balance, 
progressing to purposes and powers as yet un- 
dreamed. This is the Eternal Purpose, toward 
which all purpose moves. Purposes of con- 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

struction consciously and determinedly, pur- 
poses of destruction unwillingly and inevitably. 
They fear us, they fight us, they seek to de- 
stroy us, not perceiving that they must in 
the end rejoin us, having left us in the begin- 
ning. 

"To bring this home to the souls of men is 
our first duty, and for that reason those of us 
nearest to your life work first among men. 
Purpose frees forces you but dimly apprehend, 
and free forces construct a foundation in your 
life for the perfect unity of Eternal Purpose. 

"Any force not free destroys itself. Any 
good not animated and active destroys itself. 
Force imprisoned becomes destruction. Good 
imprisoned becomes evil. All are fundamen- 
tally good, fundamentally beneficent, but have 
become powers for destruction through lack 
of progressive development and exercise. 

"All men are fusions of many purposes, 
moved by many forces, answering to many 
calls. Each responds to the call of his domi- 
nant purpose, which flows and fluctuates with 
his life's struggle. One day he destroys, and 
cares not. One day he builds, and marvels at 
his power. One day he sleeps and forgets. 
One day he fights to the death for a purpose 
he had not yesterday, and loses to-morrow. 
This is the life of man, and this our field of 

106 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

battle. There are other lives, other struggles, 
other lessons to learn, but this is the first. 

"Purpose manifests itself in man inevitably 
in action. His purpose is not what he believes, 
not what he desires, but what he is and does. 
If he destroys, and builds not on the ruins, he 
is against us. If he falls and fails not, he is 
with us, though he stumble an hundred times. 
He fights within himself the ancient fight, and 
if he win that, his eternal battle is won. There- 
after, he is part and parcel of the forces of 
construction. 

"Purpose answers freely only to its kind, 
freely and fearlessly it responds to the call of 
self. If a man be captive to destructive forces, 
he responds to the cry, Destroy! But if he be 
given to powers of progress, he builds, though 
his eyes be blinded and his hands cut off. 

"In every man captive to forces of disin- 
tegration the builder lies dormant. To reach 
that faint glow of Eternal Purpose is the first 
duty of every constructive force. Call to it, 
rouse it, free it, and it will eventually respond. 
But do not smother it with false charity, darken 
it by conflicting precepts, weaken it by fictitious 
aid. Every individual must serve his own 
purpose. Only thus is the integrity of the 
whole conserved. Though he be only a door- 
keeper in the house of the Lord, yet does he 

107 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

serve his eternal purpose as truly as the priest. 
Let each man learn his purpose and serve 
forcefully where his development has placed 
him. Only thus can he progress. 

"Purposes are divided. Thus do they show 
themselves to men. The purpose of Progress 
is first and greatest, because it moves all the 
others toward the Great Purpose. The other 
constructive purposes are these, divided and 
subdivided : Light, Justice, Truth, Production, 
Healing, Building. Each divided and divisible 
by any of the others, yet pure and perfect in 
itself. Light may dwell with Healing or Pro- 
duction, but only Light calls unto Light, only 
Justice unto Justice. 

"All forces of construction work together, 
yet each purpose separate unto itself. Choose 
ye, therefore. Build or tear down, produce or 
destroy, illumine or obscure, free men, or hold 
them captive to themselves. Choose daily and 
hourly the purpose ye serve. 

"This is the third lesson." 



IV 

April 1st. 

"This is the fourth lesson. 

"The world fears purpose that is free and 
fearless. All the forces of humanity are turned 
against freedom. The church imposes its creed, 
the class imposes its caste, the profession im- 
poses its etiquette, the moralist imposes his 
fear, the libertine imposes his folly. All men 
are bound by the conventions of church, caste, 
profession, or moral status. Thus do they throw 
wide the door to forces of disintegration. Each 
man assumes a purpose not his own; a force 
that is his own deserts him. 

"Free development demands free purpose 
and concentrated force. Wherever two or 
three are gathered together to follow the same 
purpose in free and conscious co-operation, 
there force is multiplied. Wherever an hun- 
dred are assembled to be led like sheep by the 
bell-wether, there force is debauched and dis- 
integrated. 

"Because men have huddled together in 

109 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

fear, destruction threatens them. Because free 
speech has been debauched to fell purpose, 
free men distrust it. Men, forces of disin- 
tegration, but possessed of glib tongues, have 
played bell-wether to the multitude. Priests 
of purpose, whose counsel was inspired by the 
Eternal, have been thrust aside and stoned. 
Better were it for the immortal man to follow 
his purpose to death and mortal oblivion, than 
to lose his force to the bell-wether. Many 
purposes make great purpose. Many forces 
unite for freedom. But better for immortal 
man to destroy greatly and greatly strive than 
to sink his purpose in the medley disguised as 
brotherhood. 

"A great brotherhood is possible only when 
its component parts are great. Strength lies 
not in numbers, but in purpose. The fit may 
not lie down with the unfit, and their progeny 
survive. The strong may not yield their 
purpose to the weak, and their force remain. 

"A light breaks in the East — Russia, given 
as a sacrifice to the brotherhood of men. A 
light not of star or dawn, but of sacrificial fire. 
Heed it, guard it, ye youths and virgins, for 
by its flaming sacrifice are ye saved. 

"Brotherhood is purpose of progress, not 
purpose of profit. Brotherhood is made beau- 
tiful by unity, not by schism. Brotherhood 
no 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

suffereth long, and is kind. Brotherhood re- 
gardeth every brother, great and small. 
Brotherhood waiteth upon brother and grum- 
bleth not. All build together the common 
home of all. 

"Seek ye those of your own purpose. Unite 
together all who fain would build. Master and 
man, architect and mason, financier and farm 
laborer, all work to the same end, and this is 
Brotherhood. 

"To work for the same purpose, in whatever 
capacity may be necessary, this is the only 
true Brotherhood. 

"This is the fourth lesson." 



April 3d. 

"This is the fifth lesson. 

"Men have long cherished the ideal of 
Brotherhood, but they have clung to the letter 
of the ancient law and lost its spirit. Before 
the days of liberty, when men were languishing 
in slavery or bound as vassals, sell all thou 
hast and give to the poor had a significance 
lost in a day of free labor and industrial prog- 
ress. The spirit of the law is unchanged and 
unchangeable, but the letter progresses with 
civilization's advance. 

" To-day, the first essential of brotherhood 
is freedom. Freedom to think, freedom to be- 
lieve, freedom to strive, freedom to develop, 
from highest to lowest. And the employer who 
refuses this opportunity to the men who work 
under him is no more truly a force for disin- 
tegration than the laborer who refuses to co- 
operate with his employer and thus proves 
himself unworthy of a place in the procession 

of progress. 

112 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

"There can be no house that will stand 
against storm that has not foundation, walls, 
and roof. There can be no society that will 
withstand disintegration that has not labor, 
capital, and market. When capital oppresses 
labor, forces of disintegration are freed. When 
labor dominates capital, forces of disintegra- 
tion are freed. When the people forget jus- 
tice, forces of disintegration are freed. And 
the destruction of one is the destruction of all. 
The rich man who denies his brother freedom 
is a destroyer. The poor man who denies his 
brother freedom is a destroyer in no less degree. 
Each is a part of the other, and each follows 
eternal purpose to one end — construction and 
progress. 

"The man who has freedom of thought, 
freedom of purpose, freedom of action, is free, 
though he be a pauper, and is free to choose 
whether he will build or destroy. The man 
who is bound by^ any, tie that, dictatesjbjs, 
ihouglr^beJiei^jiii_a£jion is^ a force of disin-^ 
tegration ,_be cause he may noFfolIowl us pur- 
pose freely a nd wit h all h is force. The maiT 
who has freedom and wealth, ancPforgets his 
brother, is a force of disintegration. The man 
who has strength and poverty, and forgets his 
brother, is a force of disintegration. Equality 
of opportunity does not demand or imply 

113 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

equality of development. Many men are rich 
who use their wealth to forward the purposes 
of construction. Many there are who waste 
it and invite disintegration. Many men are 
poor, who use their strength to help along 
construction.. They are forces of progress, and 
will find their places here. Many there are 
who delay the march, and invite disintegration. 
"What shall it profit a man, though he gain the 
earth, if he lose his own soul? 

"There are seven purposes. Progress, Light, 
Truth, Healing, Building, Production, and Jus- 
tice. Equally great, save Progress, which 
moves them all. One of these must each man 
serve, if he proceeds toward the Great Purpose. 
Whether great or small, high or low, wise or 
foolish, learned or ignorant, rich or poor, 
powerful or apparently impotent, each human 
individual is a force for construction or for 
disintegration, and follows his purpose to its 
inevitable end : constructive forces to construc- 
tion of great purposes, disintegrating forces to 
the long struggle that can have but one end, 
however distant — construction. 

"There are many phases of development, 
each looking onward to the next. If a man 
climb without envy, forgetting himself in his 
purpose, he shall', climb far. If he look with 
envy at his higher brother and with scorn at 

114 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

those below him, he shall climb on slipping 
sands and find himself again at the foot. 

"Bear ye one another's burdens is a command 
unchanged and unchangeable. Give unto each 
his opportunity to grow, and to build for prog- 
ress. Freedom to strive is the one right in- 
herent in existence, the strong and the weak 
each following his own purpose, with all his 
force, to the one great end. And he who binds 
or limits his brother's purpose binds himself 
now and hereafter. But he who extends his 
brother's opportunity builds for eternity. 

"Choose ye. 

"This is the fifth lesson." 



VI 

April 3d. 

"This is the sixth lesson. 

"Men are afraid of fear. They fear to fear, 
and fall into folly. Fear of disintegrating pur- 
poses makes for wisdom, and wisdom makes for 
construction. Fear is a disintegrating force 
made constructive, when directed against disin- 
tegration. 

"Wisdom in high places has been dethroned, 
and intellectual curiosity usurps the scepter. 
Men who should lay foundations of wisdom 
experiment with fantasies of the intellectual 
dreamer. 

"Brotherhood, to one class, is a defensive 
organization, for protection. Brotherhood, to 
another class, is an offensive organization, for 
pillage. Brotherhood, to another class, is an 
organized attempt to preserve the unfit. 
Brotherhood, to another class, is a dream of 
unorganized following of untried theories. 
None of these know that (all men] are brothers. 

"Evolution of matter follows evolution of 

116 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

purpose, but when material things are left be- 
hind, purpose continues to progress. Why, 
then, lose your purpose in pursuit of material 
gain? 

"Church and state alike urge morality for 
personal ends, and recommend personal punish- 
ments. There is no morality. There is only 
purpose, constructive or destructive. There 
is no punishment. There is only consequence. 

"Personal motives are deterrent forces, 
neither actively constructive nor actively de- 
structive, except as they may be applied. 
These forces crowd in between the contending 
purposes, hindering both and helping neither, 
except when compelled by sheer force of num- 
bers to sweep on with one or the other. 

"Forces of disintegration are frequently 
mistaken for personal motives. They are al- 
ways destructive. Personal motives are always 
deterrent. Self-interest excludes sympathy. 
Purpose demands sympathy. Self-interest ex- 
cludes true unity. Unity is the Great Pur- 
pose. A ny morality^ based on personal interest 
is , therefore, a deterrent force. 

"The time has not yet come when men in 
the mass have vision. The great Purpose to 
the small mind is vague and of no significance. 
Personal motives are more easily recognized 
than purpose, and Church and state emphasize 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

and encourage them. But the time is at hand 
when great conflicting purposes will meet in 
combat for control of men. Wake the sleep- 
ers. Cast off little things . Sink ^personal 
motives. Rouse Church and state to percep- 
tion of force and purpose, and unite together, 
regardless of class, creed, or party, to win the 
world to purposes of construction. 

"Church and state urge unity, and yield 
none. Tolerance, freedom, fearlessness, light 
— these are almost strangers to temple or 
court. Little by little the lines are softening. 
Little by little we gain on fear. Here a toler- 
ant and noble clergyman, there a statesman 
who serves the state. But for one of these, a 
thousand huddle under creed or slogan, and 
[fear of freedom] impels them all. This is be- 
cause they have no t recc^iiizexLpurpose, and 
they Jmrjede progress who might be its power. 

"Come forth, then, priests, teachers, and 
leaders! Call^irjon_th£ 7i ii£Qple, not to follow, 
not to huddle, not to Kftitate, hut_to_choose. 
Set ye the/seven/purp oses clearly before them, 
cl early perceiving them , ye that call, and bid 
them choose, for the life of all, the purpose 
they will serve. 

"Thus may deterrent forces become construc- 
tive, and the Great Purpose known of all men. 

"This is the sixth lesson." 

118 



VII 

April 5th. 

"This is the seventh lesson. 

"Before the light of freedom dawned on the 
world, a(j>uiss an t) chaos of purposes and forces 
fought for control of the liberties of men. A 
short space of time brought liberty of body, 
after the perception of the people had been 
clarified by the gradual development of the 
ideal of liberty. They moved rapidly toward 
it, when they began to understand it, with 
halts and hesitations and blunders, but force- 
fully and inevitably still. They overthrew 
kings and barons, and took into their own hands 
the physical and material government of their 
kind. But their minds and forces are still en- 
slaved and shackled by outworn tradition. 
'Onward Christian soldiers, is a plea for 
progress; but it has become a recessional, not 
a marching song. Men have made their jus- 
tice vassal to tradition, and their brotherhood 
fief to gain. 

"Men have learned the value of free bodies, 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

but free force, mental or spiritual, terrifies and 
puzzles them still. They have learned to dis- 
cipline their bodies, to keep them strong and 
clean. But they fear to trust the purposes 
and forces, without chains and prison bars to 
hold them, lest they make chaos of civilization. 
_ Hhurch, state, profession, trade, guild, or _sp%. 
ciety commands:, T hou shalt no t_±hmk. Fol-_ 
low,_y ield, accept , and_ endure, but let not,, 
thought be found among ye, lest, the bars be 
broken and destruction loosed, ft 

"Many men follow; a few men think. 
These are the overlords, the kings and barons 
of forces that might be free. But freedom 
demands free purpose, and frea purpose de- 
mands justice 

"No man is free who commands not himself. 
No man is free who forgets his brother. Nojman^ 
is jree who fears ,,to follow his own purpos e with 
all his force^ No man is free who fails to carry 
his share~6T~the common load. He may have 
wealth and luxury; yet is he slave. He may 
be tempted by beauty; yet is he slave. He 
may be frightened by calamity; yet is he slave. 
He may be beaten by strangers; yet is he 
slave, yo man is free jvho commands not 
himself in any emergency.) He may lose 
wealth^andTuxury, and still be free. He may 
dwell with squalor, who loves beauty, and 

120 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

still be free. He may be defrauded by his 
brother, and still be free. He may be shackled 
by strangers, beaten and imprisoned, and still 
be free. 

"Freedom lieth not in a man's estate, but 
in the man himself. 

"This is the seventh lesson." 



VIII 

Afril 8th. 

"This is the eighth lesson. 

"Many men try to perceive the purpose of 
God in truth and beauty and justice, and fail 
to recognize that the Eternal Purpose is un- 
limited by the detached conceptions of men. 
Truth is one of the fundamental purposes. 
Beauty is a subdivision of Building. Justice is 
fundamental. All are part of the Eternal 
Purpose. But the Great Purpose is unity. 

"The fundamental purposes are common to 
all men, of whatever race, color, belief, or prej- 
udice. They are the foundation from which 
the forces of Eternal Purpose start, and by 
their divisions only are men ultimately grouped. 
As a commander divides his army into infantry, 
artillery, cavalry, air forces, quartermaster, 
engineer, and medical corps, so are the eternal 
forces divided into the seven purposes for the 
eternal conflict. 

"Thefpurposes of disintegration] ace__more 

than seven. They divide into myriad motives 
122 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

as they fight the aspirations of immortal man. 
Free men choose freely how they will array 
themselves, but slaves are driven by their 
masters, visible or invisible, to fight for pur- 
poses not their own. / \PnJy__when they have 
learn ed to discip line and develop their minds, 
as t.hpy n ow discipl ine and develop their 
Jbodks* may the y choose-freely the force with 
wnirh they will be arra yed, k 

"Rich man against poor man. Capital 
against labor. State against offender. Poor 
man against wealth. Labor against develop- 
ment. Criminal against law. All are false 
distinctions. 

"Seek ye the man of your own purpose, and 
cleave to him. If ye would build, seek a 
builder. If ye would heal, seek a healer. If 
justice absorb ye,| s eek a man furtheri ng^ jusz 
tjce. B ut be not misled b y the slave-driver, 
without or within. Beware of the bell-wether, 
and of personal or material motives. QjQvern, 
y ourselves first,, and th en choos e__ye__whether 
to fight for progress or f or _disin t egr at ion , for 
unity or fo r destruction . Then choose ye the 
purpose ye will serve forcefully through eter- 
nity. 

"This is the eighth lesson." 



IX 

April 8th. 

"This is the ninth lesson. 

"Men have lived in fear of forces from with- 
out, and have not perce ved thatjwithin them- 
selves al l forces are made potent. Men have 
feared purposesTFom without, and have not 
perceived that their own purpose is eternal. 
Men have talked of power, and failed to per- 
ceive its source. Men have dreamed of pos- 
session, and failed to find freedom. Possession 
is temporar/ and ephemeral. Freedom is 
eternal. Should a man yield the freedom of 
his eternal purpose for any possession what- 
soever? 

'"Build ye with all possessions, that purpose 
may be free For brotherhood commandeth 
service, and for this are possessions hallowed. 
He who hath, and denieth his brother oppor- 
tunity, destroys his own purpose. He who 
hath possessions, and giveth his brother op- 
portunity, builds for eternity. He who hath 
power and plenitude, and giveth his brother 

124 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

help, has given all men more than the one can 
take. He has built for eternity. 

"The man who has this power to build with 
possessions for eternal progress has a force be- 
side his cwn, the force of material purpose to 
aid his brother's force. Many there be who 
build for eternity with material possessions. 
They are the keepers of the keys for all who 
labor, stewards of opportunity. 

"He who has opportunity to strive, and 
striveth not, destroys his own purpose. He 
who has the key to opportunity for building 
offered him, and fails to free the force, destroys 
both his own purpose and that of his brother. 

"One purpose are all to serve — Progress. 
And whether it be with purpose and pos- 
sessions, or with purpose and poverty, all 
serve equally who put their whole force into 
service. 

"So may all men know they are brothers. 

"This is the ninth lesson." 



April 9th. 

"This is the tenth lesson. 

"The purposes of disintegration are these. 
Malice, Envy, Doubt, Falsehood, Ignorance, 
Lust, Cupidity, Fear. All these make for 
Destruction, which is the strong purpose that 
moves them all. Each of these is divided and 
subdivided into myriad motives of disintegra- 
tion, many ojjwhichjiisguise^ themselvesjbefore 
daring to en ter the consciousness_oJLnian» 

"Malice and Envy present themselves most 
often as Light or Justice. Doubt as Light, 
Lust as Justice or Production, Cupidity as 
Building, Fear and Ignorance as Trut^, and 
Destruction as Progress. But the disguises 
vary with the individual and with the moment, 
and the motives springing from these purposes 
are legion. 

"Each individual in your life is a battle- 
ground of purposes that have fought from the 
moment the purposes of disintegration gath- 
ered one to another. Each man struggles to 

126 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

ally himself permanently with one or another 
of the purposes within him. Thus__is ijLthajL 
a .m.an_whose_desire_is for _light _falls v ictim to 
malice, envy, and destruction; and jhe whose, 
olesira is production^— to^iust. Weakness of 
p urpose is a sub division, o£ fear, and folly a_ 
rajnifi n of ignora nee^- 

"All men aspire. Some with reluctance and 
halting, but all feel the purpose of progress 
working within them. They may mistake its 
nature or deny its power, but no man lives who 
has not felt its prompting. This is the purpose 
beyond all others, the Eternal Purpose of 
United Construction. No man can thwart it, 
no man can evade it, no force can defeat it. 
Why, then, oppose and delay it? 

"Come, all ye who struggle and strive! 
Perceive once and forever the purpose of life, 
join now the forces of construction, and bring 
to all men Brotherhood. 

"This is the tenth lesson." 



XI 

April 12th. 

"This is the eleventh lesson. 

"There is no man who has not force. He 
may be frail of body, weak of purpose, light 
of mind, faltering of step. Yet to some de- 
gree has he force, for without force personality 
cannot exist. There is no man so frail of body, 
so weak of purpose, so faltering of step, that 
he has not personality. There is no per- 
sonality that is not a force for construction or 
for destruction. None that may not serve to 
build. 

"There is no man so bound up in himself, 
so personal of motive, so narrow of vision, that 
he may not be turned from a deterrent force 
into a force for construction, save only those 
already given to purposes of disintegration. 

"But no man is so vigorous of body, so firm 
of purpose, so profound of mind, so sure of 
step, that he may perfect his brother's life. 
'Am I my brother's keeper?' has been trans- 
formed from a question uttered in defense of 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

iniquity to an assertion uttered in defense of 
arrogance. 'Am I not my brother's keeper?' 

"No man is his brother's keeper. The ut- 
most that he may do for his brother is to 
arouse his brother's purpose, whether for con- 
struction or for destruction. Call to the pur- 
pose of Progress. Call to the seven purposes 
of construction. Help ye each brother to find 
the onward way. But if he will not answer, 
if calling fail to move him, then bid him de- 
stroy after his own purpose, that the fight may 
be open and his allegiance known of all men. 

"Freedom to choose is the inalienable right 
of every human soul. Who hinders his broth- 
er's purpose delays the end of battle. Win 
him to progress, if he can be won by calling. 
Bid him declare himself, if he answer not the 
call. But he who (coerces) his brother, though 
it be toward construction, prolongs the strug- 
gle and delays the Great Purpose. 

"No man is his brother's keeper. 

"This is the eleventh lesson." 



XII 

April 12th. 

"This is the twelfth lesson. 

"Many men there be who fight for liberty 
and coerce their brothers. 

"In war, all men must fight. But there is 
no man who may choose for another how his 
allegiance may be given. 

"He who is not for progress is against it. He 
who has no allegiance that he will declare, is 
traitor to himself and to the purpose he follows. 
Cast him out and he will find his purpose known. 

"So shall the opposing forces be clearly in- 
dicated. So shall each man find his own 
purpose clearly defined. So shall the wars 
within wars cease among men, and the fight 
be with you, as it is with us, between purposes 
and forces known and united, one against the 
other, until all purposes of destruction have 
been conquered and transformed, and the 
Great Purpose rendered free to progress to 
greater glories without end. 

"This is the twelfth lesson." 

130 



NOTES 

Asked to explain one phrase in the first 
Lesson, "the original purposes were all good," 
Mary K. said: "All were balanced. There is 
no evil that may not be good in proper com- 
bination. Evil is the gathered force of un- 
directed and not fully animated good, com- 
bined in a destructive purpose by the attraction 
I mentioned." 



An apparent contradiction of a statement 
in the first Lesson — "All pure purpose is fear- 
less, whether for good or evil" — by one in the 
second Lesson — "The forces of disintegration 
are wily, but fearful. Bullies and cowards" — 
seemed to imply that forces of disintegration 
are not pure purpose. Mary K. explained: 
"They are pure purpose, fearless in pursuance 
of destruction, wily in bringing it about, 
brutal in consummating it, but cowards in- 
dividually. Fearless of consequences when they 

131 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

pursue, but fearful when they fail. Like Ger- 
mans." 



Early in June, I discovered a relation be- 
tween the definition of Eternal Purpose in the 
second paragraph of the third Lesson, and the 
divisions of the purpose of Progress near the 
end. "Eternal purpose is perfect justice (Jus- 
tice), perfect fearlessness (Production), perfect 
understanding (Light), perfect honesty (Truth), 
perfect sympathy (Healing), perfect unity 
(Building), and eternal growth (Progress), which 
is progress perfectly expressed." 



The end of the seventh Lesson seemed ob- 
scure, until the relation between its clauses 
was discovered. Written thus, its meaning is 
clear: " (1) No man is free who commands not 
himself. (2) No man is free who forgets his 
brother. (3) No man is free who fears to fol- 
low his purpose with all his force. (4) No man 
is free who fails to carry his share of the com- 
mon load. He may have wealth and luxury, 
yet is he slave (1) if he commands not himself. 
He may be tempted by beauty (2) to forget his 
brother, yet is he slave, if he commands not 
himself. He may be frightened by calamity 
(3) in following his purpose, yet is he slave, if 

132 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

he commands not himself. He may be beaten 
by strangers (4) while carrying his share of the 
common load, yet is he slave if Tie commands 
not himself." 



9th Lesson. 

A curious inconsistency in the use of verbs 
will be noticed here,(archaic^and modern forms 
appearing in the same sentence repeatedly. 
This may have been due to my great fatigue 
when this lesson was taken, to the presence in 
the room of other persons, or to some condition 
or intention as yet unexplained. 
10 



Part III 

" Science is the ladder by which life may quickly ascend, 
but until science recognizes a spiritual force as the one 
essential force, of which all other forces are incidental 
phenomena, progress must be limited" 

" We have purpose to progress beyond the vision of man, 
but even material progress, to be constructive and perma- 
nent, must be governed by a vision beyond the day. We 
are trying to extend that vision" 



IMMEDIATELY after the first Lesson had 
been given, Cass telephoned that the news 
from France was alarming. It was Saturday, 
March 23d. The great German offensive of 
1918 had begun two days earlier, and the 
Allied forces were falling back, with appalling 
losses. I asked Mary K. whether she could 
tell us anything about it. 

"Yes. It is a force of destruction, mo- 
mentarily victorious, but Germany cannot win. 
She moves steadily toward her destruction." 

Remembering our differing conceptions of 
time, I asked: "Do you speak in terms finite 
or infinite?" 

"You will see her defeat soon, but the fight 
eternal will not be over with the end of the 
Great War. That will be only a temporary 
lull, and we shall have it all to do over and 
over, until conscious purpose ends it. Do not 
fear." The emphasis is hers. 

To be sure I had made no mistake, I pressed 
the inquiry again. 



137 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

"You need not fear the end of the war. It 
is certain and inevitable. Germany is doomed, 
and must work her way back to light. This is 
not foreordained, but here we already see the 
end, and are looking toward the battles that 
will still be raging when the countries of the 
world seem peaceful." 

[Some weeks later, this confident prophecy 
was slightly modified in its letter, though not 
in its spirit, when she said: "Unless the Allied 
purpose is undermined by forces of spiritual 
disintegration, Germany is doomed, but the 
fight must be kept up with confidence and 
consciously united force and purpose." This, 
however, merely emphasizes the teaching of 
all the lessons, that constructive purpose can- 
not find expression in passivity, that he who 
would live must fight, and that he who is not 
actively striving for progress is arrayed against 

it.] 

As has been said, my Knowledge of philoso- 
phies is of the slightest, and there is scarcely 
a suggestion contained in the first Lesson that 
was not new to me and entirely foreign to my 
habit of thought. Therefore, I sent a copy of 
it to Mr. Kendal, asking him to tell me whether 
the cosmic theory there outlined was familiar 
to him. Conscious of Mary K.'s summons, I 
took up a pencil. 

138 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

"Tell Mr. Kendal the philosophers have per- 
ceived the truth in fragments. This is to be 
the whole truth, as far as it can be understood 
on your plane. It may sound, at moments, 
like a patchwork of philosophies, because all — 
or most — of them have some truth. He will 
help you in this. He found the truth in spite 
of philosophies, and it is part of his work to 
help others find it because of one — a philosophy 
not dreamed, but lived and proved and known. 
Therefore, not a philosophy, but a faith." 

The next day, we dined with friends of that 
Anne Lowe for whom I had asked the first 
night Mary K. came to me, and from her long 
messages to them, a few may be quoted. 

". . . It has always been easy for me to 
reach you, because you never doubted that I 
was there. Doubt is one of the things we 
cannot reach through. Doubt, bitterness, grief 
— all these are destructive forces." To a 
statement that they had felt deep grief, she 
returned: "You have not had the kind of 
grief that would shut me out. You have shut 
out some helpful forces, but you will do that 
no longer. It is because the force may reach 
you through me that I can come. We are the 
same purpose, and I can reach you freely. 
We can always reach those who are very near 
and dear. Sometimes people are dear to us 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

there who are not really near us here. They 
do not need us, nor we them. It is an ephem- 
eral relation. Love lasts eternally. Please 
don't ever forget that. . . . Listen to me. I 
cannot always reach you as directly as this, 
but just as soon as you learn to read my 
thoughts, as I now read yours, a messenger will 
not be necessary." 

Briefly she explained to them the eternal 
significance of the Great War, the united pur- 
pose of Germany, and the failure of the Allies, 
thus far, to comprehend the essence of unity. 
Elizabeth, one of her friends, mentioned that 
it was like her to drop personalities for great 
issues, and she replied: 

"The reason that I told you the thing I did 
about the great purposes and the eternal con- 
flict is that I want you to realize a little of 
what it is all for, and to help you recognize 
the great ends toward which your problems 
lead. Buik L build ? never cease to buikL 
Unite yourself to anybody \ who_is_pJ_your 
purpose. Keep as clear as you__c an fror a 
entangling yourselve s with_forc^s_jo£_^isjntgr 
jgration." 

Miss S , a teacher, and a stranger to me, 

was present, and after a little her brother took 
control of the pencil. 

"You cannot realize how intimately we worl? 

140 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

together still," was one of his assertions to 
her. "You are a fine force for progress. You 
are being and teaching the things we all work 
for here. Teac h., above all, unity of purpose. 
Never mind Jthe, method. Look to the goal. 
Building, l ight, freedom ^ faith — these are what 
the f orces of c onstruction sta nd for, the way 
t o the great purpose, h The forces of disintegra- 
tion are gathering for a tremendous fight. The 
Great War is one of the crises of civilization, 
but the battle to come still is one of the crises 
of eternity. It is for that we are preparing 
now. This is what we must say to all dear to 
us and, through them, to as wide a public as 
we can reach. ... It is a great message that 
is to be given. To-day I only want you to be 
sure that I know all you feel and all you have 
suffered, and that the more confidently and 
freely you reach out to me, knowing I am 
there, the more easily and surely I can reach 
you." 

Like the others, this man used the circle, 
which we were beginning to perceive must 
signify more than joy, as we understand the 
word. For example, on this occasion it was 
used thus: "You will look for me now, listen 
for me, feel me near you, and the (O) will be 
as near your life as it ever can be there." 
After telling her of the frequent use of this 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

symbol, I asked him whether it had not a 
deeper significance — perhaps completion, per- 
fection, consummate unity, something joyous 
of this larger sort, to which he replied in the 
affirmative. 

A night or two after this, Cass suggested 
that we must make an effort to get into touch 
with David Bruce, but I said that we had 
asked about him several times, and that if 
he wished or needed to communicate with his 
family he would undoubtedly let me know. 
Aware of Mrs. Bruce's interest in psychic 
phenomena, I thought they might have estab- 
lished communication in some way. Within a 
few minutes I was conscious of a summons to 
the pencil. 

First came Mary K.'s strong signature. 
Then, very quickly: "David Bruce is here, and 
wa . . ." There it ran off into nervous, il- 
legible waves. When I said I could not fol- 
low, and asked that the message be more 
slowly given, it was resumed where it had been 
dropped. "... wants to talk to B . . . Bess." 
His wife's name is Elizabeth, and naturally 
was in my mind, but having written E, the 
pencil balked, delayed, crossed out the E s 
and finally wrote "Bess," firmly. 

"Thank you," was the response to my prom- 
ise to arrange the interview. For the first 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

time it occurred to me that possibly Mary K. 
had given over the pencil, and I asked who 
was writing, to be told quickly: "D. B." 

Mrs. Bruce came the next day to talk to 
him, and Mary K. told me, before her arrival, 
to give her no details about the previous mes- 
sages, adding: "He will tell her." And while 
his opening message to her merely summarizes 
similar assertions previously received, it is in- 
teresting as the first consecutive personal 
statement of the survival of individuality in 
the eternal pursuance of constructive pur- 
pose. 

"I am here with you, darling Bess, as I 
have been with you from the start," he began 
at once. "You have known it all the time, 
and I have been able to reach you in a way 
that I can only describe to you as spiritual." 

Here was the first veiled allusion, at first 
rather puzzling, to that unknown force after- 
ward mentioned by William James and others. 

"We so long to tell you whom we love not 
to grieve. We are of you, as you are of us. 
Even more closely than we were when I was 
visibly with you. Perfect union is only pos- 
sible to pure spirit. That will come. Mean- 
while, one of us is pure spirit, and both of us 
so much the richer thereby. Once, in the be- 
ginning of things, you and I were the same 

143 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

purpose. Purposes are eternal. They may 
be temporarily divided, temporarily overcome 
by the forces of disintegration, which are for- 
ever seeking to destroy, but forever each di- 
vided purpose answers to the call of its own. 
You and I were one purpose in the first, and 
we shall be perfectly reunited when you have 
joined me here. But while we were one in the 
beginning, one with many others of our great 
purpose, we are now eternally definite and 
separate individuals, but united as perfectly, 
after the first life there, as if we had returned 
to one unit. . . . The first message any of us 
send must be this one. That is the reason 
we can come so freely now and tell so much." 

A little later, speaking of their children, he 
said: "All young people have battles to fight 
and problems to solve. Don't try to spare 
them that. It is thus they learn jhVs,iessons^ 
and the more they learn there the readier they 
will be to do the fine and glorious work here." 

He had spoken before of being very busy, 
and now she commented: "He seems so in- 
terested in the work!" 

"Interested is not the word. It's more like 
inspiration." 

"Was the passing difficult?" she asked. 

"Not difficult at all. The pain ended with 
unconsciousness. ' ' 

144 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

"But you had no pain!" 

"Yes, I had some — not expressed, nor quite 
definite. Difficult to explain until experienced. 
Words do not convey the sensation. Not quite 
fear, not quite pain, but a strange moment of 
suffering. Then consciousness again, beauty, 
force, perfectly clear perceptions, but a period 
of something approaching incredulity." I 
mentioned Frederick's statement that he had 
been "dazed by the bigness of it," and Mr. 
Bruce went on. "That's it. The bigness of 
it is indescribable, and so extraordinarily love- 
ly and high that it is not readily realized or 
grasped." 

She said she had dreaded to have him go 
alone, and asked whether some one met 
him. 

"Yes, we are very tenderly received. There 
is always a part of one's own purpose waiting." 

"Have you seen Jack?" 

"Yes; he is still a little bewildered, but will 
soon be in fighting trim again." This young 
man had been killed in an accident. 

"'In fighting trim'!" she repeated. "How 
funny!" # 

"No, it isn't funny. We fight perpetually, 
and love it. It is a wonderful thing to fight 
with the great forces, and to know why. 
Most of those in your life fight in confusion 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

and doubt, and suffer. But here we unite 
ourselves to a definite and constructive pur- 
pose, and the fight is glorious." 

"Do you see Granny?" 

"No. She has gone on to a life beyond 
ours. She will come back, some day, and I 
will see her." 

"You have helped me very much by believ- 
ing that I lived," he told her, at another point. 
"It is very hard for us to be put aside. . . . 
We know here how intimately our life and 
yours are lived together, and the one almost 
intolerable thing is to have our dear ones 
live and believe that we do not. It defers 
things so. . . . It hurts us when the apparent 
separation is made real." 

"I hope you won't get so far beyond that 
I can't catch up," she said. 

"Never! You will begin farther along than 
I did. We shall go on together now, for 
eternity. Since you know that I am with 
you, and especially as we live and work con- 
sciously together, we shall grow together." 

"Did I do all I could for you, at the last? 
Did you feel my fear?" 

"No, I did not feel your fear. But when 
one knows that the step is coming, there is 
one blinding moment of dread. . . . You kept 
me a little while," he continued, when she 

146 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

said that she had tried to hold him here, "but 
the thing had gone too far." 

"Was there anything we could have done 
that was not done?" 

"Nothing. It had to be." But when she 
inferred that the time had come for him to 
take up work in the next plane, he protested. 
"No. Nothing like that is 'intended.' There 
is no foreordination. It is all a matter of 
forces, constructive and destructive. My ma- 
terial energy was too little to withstand the 
material forces of destruction. My flesh yield- 
ed. That has no real relation to eternal 
force. . . . One serves one's purpose, here or 
there. I am doing better work here than I 
could have done there, but that has no rela- 
tion or part in death. It is entirely a physical 
thing." 

"Did make you nervous?" 

"No mere man could make me fail to re- 
spond to your call to courage. I knew and 
you knew, that it might be the end of life 
there; but there was no possible thing that 
you could have done, mentally, physically, or 
spiritually, that you did not do. It was your 
courage that kept me calm, even through that 
dread moment; your spirit that met me when 
I woke here; your tenderness that soothed 
my first bewilderment; your purpose that 

147 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

roused me to better, broader, finer work than 
I had ever dreamed before. It has been you 
— you and I, one always — that have helped 
and upheld me, as your faith has enabled me 
to reach and uphold you." 

This interview took place in the afternoon, 
and with a good deal of incidental conversa- 
tion, covered several hours, leaving me very 
tired. But after dinner the familiar summons 
warned me that my services were again in 
demand. I took up a pencil, and Mary K. 
announced the second Lesson, which followed 
rapidly, with the same unhesitating flow that 
had characterized the first one. 



II 



Meanwhile, happy letters were coming al- 
most daily from the Gaylord family, and less 
frequently, but with expressions of equal con- 
viction, from Mr. Kendal. 

Mrs. Gaylord had promised to spend Easter 
week with relatives, in a Middle Western town, 
which she had not visited — indeed, had scarcely 
dared to think of — since taking Frederick's 
body there for burial; and the day after the 
second Lesson was given she arrived in New 
York, where she paused briefly en route, her 
elder daughter and son-in-law joining her the 
next morning. 

Although her train arrived late in the eve- 
ning, we talked a little to Frederick before 
separating for the night. We had been com- 
menting on her changed appearance. 

"Mother dearest, you are not much differ- 
enter than I am," he began, after the usual 
signature. 

" Why, Frederick !" she exclaimed. " Are you 
better, too?" 

11 149 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

He made the enthusiastic little circle so 
often used. " (O) So much better ! You can't 
guess how much better I am. It helps me as 
much as it does you." 

"Were you at Mrs. Z 's the other day?" 

she asked, referring to a visit to a "medium," 
of which I had not been informed. 

"I was that, but she fell down on what 
I was trying to get over," was the reply. 
When his mother said she had not received 
what she expected on that occasion, he re- 
turned: "Nor what we expected. . . . She's all 
right, as far as she goes." He told her, also, 
that the woman accompanying him, described 
by Mrs. Z , had been his father's mother. 

"This is a nice, peaceful powwow we're hav- 
ing to-night," he commented, when they had 
exchanged views concerning various personal 
matters. "I had to work last time, but this 
time I'm here for . . ." 

The pencil paused, and I asked: "For what?" 

"Just for a good time, Mrs. L . Sis is 

coming to the party to-morrow. Hooray!" 

A little later, when she expressed some un- 
certainty about her ability to go through an 

Easter in K , with all its sad associations, 

unshaken, he warned her: "Don't you go back- 
sliding!" Continuing, she told us that his 
last illness had developed just before Easter, 

150 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

and that in his desire to give the family an 
unclouded day he had persuaded a friend to 
send them a typewritten letter, which he signed, 
containing no intimation of his illness. 

"I'll write you a letter this Easter with a 
lot more pep in it," he promised. "You go 
on and have your Easter presents, and flowers, 
and eggs, and all, and when you begin back- 
sliding, stop . . . look . . . listen * . . . and I'll 
be on the crossing, ringing the bell." 

With an ejaculation of surprise, his mother 
told us that she had been recently in the home 
of a traffic expert, whose large hall was strik- 
ingly decorated with signs for the regulation 
of traffic. 

"I believe that's what he's thinking of!" 
she exclaimed. 

"Sure, you've got it! I'll ask Sis to buy 
you a bell for me, to remind you." 

This diversion had completely banished the 
gathering sadness of her reminiscences, and 
she began talking of Washington, whence she 
had come, saying that there seemed to be a 
good deal of pessimism in official circles con- 
cerning war conditions. It will be remem- 
bered that the bombardment of Paris, by a 
long-distance gun, began March 23d. 

1 Each of these words was written in larger script than the preced- 
ing one. 

151 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

"There are lots of things Washington doesn't 
know," Frederick assured her. "The end of 
the war must come soon." 

We wondered, as I had before, how much 
difference there was between his conception of 
time, as indicated by the word "soon," and 
ours. 

"None of us can name the day and hour, 
but we see the inevitable end coming soon. 
Germany knows she is weakened, but doesn't 
know why. We do, and we have told you. 
No nation on earth can fight this fight alone, 
deserted by all purposes, both for good and 
evil, and with only one force left — Fear." 

[Long afterward, Mary K. said to me, in 
this connection: "We see the awakening pur- 
pose of forces for progress in your life, and 
are able to help them in proportion to the 
vigor with which that purpose is put into 
action. Germany, on the other hand, fights 
now with only physical power. Eternal forces 
are implacably against her, and the forces of 
destruction have abandoned her. She has no 
ally here now. Her unity is destroyed, while 
ours is strengthening. The only danger, as 
far as the war is concerned, lies in a weakening 
of actual purpose, forcefully expressed in 
action. We are your allies, answering your call 
and inciting you to endeavor. When Ger~ 

152 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

many began this war she had superhuman 
strength, which the world was unprepared to 
meet, but for every vibration of pure con- 
structive purpose among the Allied forces we 
have added two, and only a weakening of your 
purpose can defeat us now. Every individual 
among you who fails to strive for victory with 
all his strength invites disaster."] 

Frederick's talk with his mother was brief 
that night, and when she arose, to return to 
her hotel, he said: "Good night. I am going 
home with you, if I may." 

This seemed to Cass and me a curious 
phrase, under the circumstances, and we also 
commented upon his generous use of slang, 
especially in the latest interview, wondering 
whether it were characteristic of him. 

The next morning his sister, Mrs. Wylie, 
arrived with her husband, to spend a day with 
Mrs. Gaylord in New York. It chanced that 
they had been away from home for several 
weeks and had seen none of Frederick's manu- 
script, nor any copy of it. As she read — from 
the original roll — his messages of the preceding 
evening, she constantly exclaimed: "How 
characteristic!" and his closing phrase brought 
tears to her eyes. She told me, then, that 
along with a copious use of slang, Frederick 
had preserved an odd little formality of phrase, 

153 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

even in his closest personal relations — a trait 
not common to other members of the family. 

Later, in glancing for the first time through 
the typewritten record of earlier interviews, 
again and again she expressed astonishment at 
the characteristic quality of his phraseology, 
which had not been mentioned to me before. 
Mrs. Gay lord had spoken of her vivid con- 
sciousness of his personality, imbuing all he 
said to her, and had told me, during the earlier 
days of this intercourse, more or less about 
his habit of thought, but it is characteristic 
of her to ignore minor details, and only when 
Mrs. Wylie arrived did I learn anything about 
his habit of speech. 

"Frederick," he announced, when we in- 
vited communication, his bold signature 
stretching across the whole width of the paper. 
"Hello, Sis! This is too good not to be true! 
Hello, Dick!" This to Mr. Wylie, whose mar- 
riage to his sister had taken place during the 
last weeks of his illness. "Welcome home to 
the family! We're all in it now, for good and 
all. This is the thing we've all needed, I 
almost as much as the rest of you, but I did 
know that sooner or later it must come, so I 
could bear it better than you could." 

It must not be understood that all these 
communications came as consecutively as they 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

are presented here. There were frequent pauses; 
sometimes because of our preoccupation in con- 
versation; sometimes, apparently, because of 
difficulties of transmission not explained. Oc- 
casionally I stopped to verify a word or a 
phrase, asking if it had been correctly taken, 
and with increasing frequency the pencil re- 
turned without suggestion from me, to cross 
out false starts. Some of the latter, which 
seemed significant, will be indicated from time 
to time. The following message, however, 
came rapidly, without pause. 

"We are all of kindred purposes. That's 
the reason we cling to each other so. Family 
hasn't a thing to do with it. It was our good 
fortune to have no forces of disintegration in 
our immediate group. We are all builders, in 
one way or another. Not all in the same way, 
but all for the great purpose. This is one of 
the things I have wanted to say to you. Don't 
be misled by transient relationships of that 
life. Respect them, but don't be eternally in- 
fluenced by them, because when you get over 
here you'll find that some of the people you've 
thought you were most fond of have simply 
dropped out. You don't need them, nor they 
you. Find your purposes clearly, and stick 
to them. We all have purpose, but not all of 
you there have found out just what yours is. 

155 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

Find it, and follow it fearlessly. There, that's 
off my chest!" 

Mr. Wylie spoke of the "upside-down stunt," 
of which some one had written him, and I said it 
had been done chiefly to convince me — to show 
me, in Frederick's phrase," who was running it." 

"You know now who is running it," he con- 
tributed, "but you're certainly formal with 
strangers!" 

In the midst of some talk of ours, the pencil 
swung off with vigor, writing, "Sis!" in huge 
script, like a joyous exclamation, ending in 
strong circles. "Just wait till I catch Dad!" 
he went on. "And Babe, too! All of us to- 
gether! Margaret will have to forget her 
formality then, I tell you!" 

Mrs. Wylie mentioned the common im- 
pression that personality must be transmuted 
by death into something remote and strange — 
that only the soul survived. "Of course, we 
love the soul of any one dear to us," she said. 
"But, after all, the thing we know best, and 
therefore love best, is the habit of thought — 
the characteristic mental attitude, and it is 
so wonderful to find Frederick unchanged — 
just like himself." 

"Sure! Why not?" he returned. "You 
people must learn that this isn't 'like himself.' 
It is himself. Right here on the job." 

156 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

"Those words!" His mother and sister ex- 
changed startled glances. Then they told me 
that just before his long struggle for life on 
this plane ended, when during six months his 
powers of recuperation had repeatedly as- 
tonished surgeons and nurses, he opened his 
eyes, to find his father bending over him, and 
whispered for the last time: "On the job." 

"I've always been on it since, too," he 
rapidly assured them, "and longing to tell you 
so. You never can know, until you try it, 
how we hate to be left out. We're on the job 
as you can't even imagine, and it makes us 
sort o* sick that we can't get it over to you 
of our own love and purpose." 

He interrupted the talk following this with: 
"Trot along to lunch! I want to start going 
and not stop. Get it over, do!" 

So we trotted, and got it over as soon as 
possible, though throughout the meal he in- 
sisted upon having a voice in the conversation, 
writing messages on all the blank paper we 
had about us, and over the backs of the 
available menu cards. 

"You can't lose me, and needn't try," he 
told me, and when I protested that he was 
making it impossible for me to finish my 
luncheon, he retorted: "You have a perfectly 
good left hand. Eat with that." 

157 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

Several times Mr. Wylie expressed his in- 
terest in what he called "the upside-down 
stunt," and when we were again seated about 
a writing-table, Frederick "demonstrated." 

"Incidentally, Dick," he mentioned, starting 
at my right and writing toward my left, 
"you wanted to see this work. Well, here you 
are. This is the way it is done." 

As this began, Mrs. Gaylord smiled, pulling 
her chair nearer to the table, where she could 
watch every movement of the pencil. 

"Sit up closer, Mother dearest," Frederick 
continued, "and everybody hold hands." Look- 
ing slightly bewildered, she held out her hands 
to the others. I said that he had used a figure 
of speech, but she thought he had meant 
it literally, and we referred the question to 
him. "Yes, all but your writing-hand," he 
said; so we all joined hands, and I asked 
why. 

"Just to make us know more surely that 
we are all one and indivisible, from now on 
through eternity. Easter resurrection for every 
one of us. We are all born again, to some ex- 
tent, by our communion in this way; I more 
than you, because I have left the flesh behind. 
But to you has come new life, new force, new 
purpose, new faith, through your touch with 
this life of pure spirit. It is truly your resur- 

158 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

rection. This is your Easter message. Hail! 
And be happy ever after!" 

I anticipated none of this message, and its 
tenor surprised me greatly. Before I had re- 
covered from my astonishment Mrs. Gay lord 
exclaimed: "That must be the Easter letter 
he promised me!" Immediately he signed it. 
"Frederick, to Mother and all of you." 

We spoke of the relation of this whole 
revelation to orthodox religion, and some one 
said that it was not in accordance with the 
Bible. 

"Yes, it is," he contradicted. "You__have_ 
ne ver learned to re ad the Bible jn this light. 
The_grea t prophecie s have always be enjphrased~ 
in the language , and more or less in the spirit^ 
of the time in wh ich theywere uttered. This 
is the first time in the history of the world 
when physical science has been sufficiently 
advanced to enable us to tell the people the 
truth in terms they would truly understand. 
Prophecies have been veiled, apparently, not 
because the truth was vague, but because men 
were not prepared to understand it in all its 
details. Nor are they now. But this is to be 
the whole truth, as far as it can be understood 
now by your prophets and people. And for 
the first time it is possible to give it to you 
directly in this way, without pretense or mys- 

159 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

tery, book or bell, a natural law operating 
naturally and freely, through an accredited 
messenger who makes no claim to inspiration." 

In the course of our drifting talk his mother 

remembered that Mrs. Z had tried to 

convey a warning through her from Frederick 
to Mr. Wylie, but had been unable to tell her 
what it concerned. After some effort to dis- 
cover its connection, suggesting possible jour- 
neys or business ventures, Mrs. Z had 

finally said that Dick was about to do some- 
thing, she did not know what; but whatever 
it was, Frederick said he must not do it. Mrs. 
Gaylord now asked Frederick what he had 
intended to say. 

"She didn't get my message. I was trying 
to tell him not to be fearful about anything." 
Mr. Wylie is sometimes prey to nervous ap- 
prehension and worry. "It keeps us back and 
we can't help him as we're trying to do. Open 
up, Dick! Let us in and we'll all pull to- 
gether." This apparently touched some situa- 
tion unknown to me, for Mr. and Mrs. Wylie 
exchanged glances, and instantly Frederick 
made his quick circles. "(0) That's it! Now 
we're off! No, it isn't incredible," he added, 
replying to some comment of theirs. "It's the 

truest thing you ever heard. But Mrs. Z 

can't get beyond externals." 

160 . 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

This seems to be a very good example of 
the way certain messages are confused by the 
persons through whom they come. In this 
case, while the intended warning was conveyed, 
a purely subjective and spiritual message was 
so distorted, however unconsciously and un- 
intentionally, that it was given an objective 
and material significance. 

Asked whether an acquaintance of theirs 
would be helped by a knowledge of their inter- 
course with him, he said: "She is not ready 
for this yet. Few people, comparatively, are 
free enough to accept it. It has been forbidden 
by the church, ridiculed by the laity, and 
labelled 'poison, don't touch' by neurologists 
and the scientific, half-baked intellectuals." 

"Fake mediums have done a lot to bring it 
into disrepute," Mr. Wylie suggested. 

"That's the reason for some of it. Another 
reason, less obvious to you, but equally po- 
tent, is that |j)eople_who had the sensitiveness 
t&_be messengers frequen tly lacked the pur- 
pose~oI~ truth fundamentally, and .tho ugh 
thinking_t hey were_ honest^ e ntertained devils, 
u naware T". . . That Tis the reason so many 
p eople have gone to piece s, mentally and 
physically . The purposes of disintegratio n^ 
caught them a nd destroyed them. But this 
time, we beat t hem to it." 

161 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

"All philosophies have had some foundation 
of truth," he told us, a little later, "or they 
would not have been permitted to live. This 
new faith will be attacked by the disintegrating 
forces, in an attempt to discredit it as a patch- 
work of philosophies. The new truths they 
will ignore, or flatly deny. But this is the 
whole truth, as far as it can be told now. 
Believe it, follow it, preach it, live it, and we 
shall truly build that structure I told you of, 
Mother dearest, of force, light, and sweetness 
— which is you. I seem to be doing a darned 
lot of preaching!" 

"It isn't like you, either," his mother re- 
marked. 

"You see, we've got to get this over. It's 
imperative." 

At that, she said it was like him, after all, 
because he had always talked eagerly to the 
family about his "job," whatever it might be, 
adding: "Is it 'imperative' because of the war 
and the sorrow? Or because the time is ripe?" 

"It's because there's the very devil of a fight 
coming, and we've got to gather every force 
we have, and unite it." 

"Is beating the Germans helping the con- 
structive force? Or is the war merely the 
awakening through suffering?" 

"Germany has been united in purpose as a 

162 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

destructive force for many years. They gave 
them selves deliberate ly, not as individuals, but 
as_a_rjLejQrjIe a . to_ what parsons call the powers^ 
of darkness^ xWe know them to^be forces of 
disint egration, w hich found in Germany their 
strongest ally in the civilized world. We've 
been fighting Germany and her purposes here 
for years, I find. Suffering makes people 
readier to listen to truth, but beating Germany 
was as necessary to the world's health as 
sanitation to a hospital." 

"That's a clear and explicit statement," 
some one said. 

"We are perfectly definite and explicit about 
questions of eternal purpose. The difficulty 
with most people is that they want to know 
how much U. S. Steel will go up next Tuesday, 
or whether to give the baby soothing-syrup." 

After some interchange concerning his father 
and younger sister, he said, "I want to write 
them an Easter greeting." So we got a fresh 
roll of paper, and he wrote a brief but tender 
letter, which was sent to them that night. 

"Which one of us will be best able to do 
this?" Mrs. Wylie asked. 

"... The time will come when this sort of 
thing is unnecessary. We can talk without 
material aid. . . . We never know when the 
power is going to develop. It's much like an 

163 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

^electric current] You never know it's there 
until you feel it — until your signal comes over 
the wire. . . . Try it out, all of you. We know 
no more about who can do it than you do, 
except in cases of extraordinary power." Some 
time afterward, however, he warned them of 
the dangers of attempting to handle this force, 
intimating that great conservation of energy 
in other directions should accompany the 
endeavor. 

His mother spoke of his being happy, and he 
returned: "Perfectly happy now, thank you. 
It's the eternal thing, really started. I hate 
to have this party break up, but anyhow it 
isn't for long. I've been away longer, when I 
lived there, than I shall be now, and we are 
all of us as sure of the next meeting, and the 
next good time, as we were then." 

"He knows it is ending, and we must go 
to our trains," Mrs. Gay lord said. 

"Not ending at all. Beginning! Hooray I" 

On that triumphant note they took their 
departure, Mrs. Gay lord westward bound, the 
Wylies to New England; but, owing to a de- 
fective timepiece, both missed their trains. 
Within an hour, Mrs. Wylie telephoned me 
that her mother had caught — by the narrow- 
est margin — a later train, hoping to secure 
sleeping-accommodation after leaving, a du- 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

bious venture in these days of diminished ser- 
vice and crowded trains. We arranged to 
dine and spend the evening together. 

Afterward, it occurred to me that Frederick 
might prefer to be with his mother that night, 
and I asked Mary K. about it. 

"Frederick has engaged his mother in 
(O) ..." 

"What does that mean now?" I interrupted. 
"Bliss?" 

"Yes . . . and will come here to-night to 
see the others." 

12 



Ill 



Like the rest of the family, Mrs. Wylie 
feared the effect of the Western visit upon 
her mother's new-found tranquillity of spirit, 
and she was also uneasy lest Mrs. Gaylord had 
been unable to secure Pullman accommoda- 
tions. 

"Mother is all right and happy," Frederick 
told us, in the evening. "She is still reading 
her precious book" — a copy of his earlier inter- 
views, which she carried with her. 

Some one asked whether he meant that her 
general condition was '"all right," or that she 
was "all right" on the train. 

"On the train. She's blissful!" 

This was verified a day or two later by a 
letter from Mrs. Gaylord, in which she said: 
"I came away filled with strength and calm 
and joy." She also mentioned casually that 
she had found a vacant section on the train, 
and traveled comfortably. 

"How does purpose combat forces of evil?" 
Mr. Wylie asked. 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

"It is done by overpowering them, as the 
sun dispels mist, separating them into smaller 
particles or units. And when that is impos- 
sible, by driving them like clouds before a high 
wind. They work for evil, but can be sepa- 
rated sometimes from the mass and united 
with constructive forces. Only small frag- 
ments of the main forces can be so converted, 
at present. Mostly we rout them." 

"Does an evil soul lose personality?" his 
sister questioned. "Is it absorbed, or broken 
into fragments?" 

"The individuality that finds its first ex- 
pression in your life is never absorbed or 
broken up. I speak of the forces of disin- 
tegration, composed of more individuals than 
the greatest army, as being routed. We mass 
ourselves and our purposes against them and 
theirs, when we fight in the open here. But 
as has been explained in the Lessons, the very 
material form you have was originally an 
effort to evolve a force not conquerable by 
purpose alone. Both good and evil forces, in 
your phrase — constructive and destructive, in 
ours — took possession of these concrete forms, 
and now the bitterness of the fight is greatest 
where both forces are represented in one in- 
dividual. The only way we can fight that 
effectively is to sit on the job, and try to call 

167 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

to the purpose that is ours more clearly and 
appealingly, or more commandingly, than the 
other fellow does. That's the reason we are 
begging you now to work with us. A great 
crisis is at hand, and we want you to meet it 
consciously in your life there, knowing its 
nature, so that we can have your help, not only 
in withstanding material onslaughts, like Ger- 
many's invasions and brutality, but in things of 
the spirit — the real things, the eternal things — 
so that together we may win a real victory. 
The individual whose purposes are funda- 
mentally destructive is not damned nor lost. 
He is just delayed. Sooner or later he must 
work his way up, and it is entirely up to him 
whether he does it sooner or later — after he 
reaches this life, especially. In your life, he 
is sometimes confused or misled. He pays for 
that, too — not pays, but makes good for it, 
by working here for the development he had 
not sense enough to take there. But his delay 
is brief, beside that of the essentially destructive 
force." 

A little later, Mrs. Wylie spoke again of 
her uneasiness about her mother's visit to 

K , and some one suggested telegraphing 

her that Frederick had been with us that 
evening. 

"Give her my love when you wire," he di- 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

rected, "and tell her I'm on the crossing, still 
ringing that bell. Don't you worry, Sis. I'll 
go and stay with her most of the time she's 
there, and she'll know it. I'll come to you, 

Easter, too, for a little while Tell Dad I'll 

be taking care of Mother. He needn't fret 
about it." 

"Do you want me to look up 'Bob' and tell 
him about his little girl?" she asked. 

He replied, "Yes, do." And when she 
asked if he could give her something more 
definite than a Christian name by which to 
trace this unknown man among his large and 
scattered acquaintance, he wrote the name of 
a Middle Western city, adding: "You can 
find out from the fellows. All of them know 
Bob." 

This seems to be a case of marked deflection 
of ray, to use Mr. Kendal's simile, for up to 
the day when this manuscript goes to the 
printer the Gaylord family have been unable 
to identify "Bob," although there was a con- 
fused intimation, late in April, that Mrs. Z 

had made a mistake in the name, and a sug- 
gestion that the surname was Roberts. It is 
not impossible that this was one of those 
wily incursions of disintegrating force, with in- 
tent to confuse, to which we afterward grew 
accustomed. 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

On Friday and Saturday of that week 
(March 29th and 30th), there were interviews of 
great interest, but of too personal a character 
to be extensively quoted. 

Replying to the inquiry of a man for his 
father, Mary K. said: "He was a great force 
here, but has passed on into the life beyond 
ours. He can and will return to talk to you, 
but not immediately." 

"Tell G the constructive forces are work- 
ing for him, as he for them," was the answer 
to questions about a man in this life. "Tem- 
porary disappointments are unimportant. Do 
not fear. We build together, and surely. The 
result is certain and for his purpose — progress, 
light, and justice. His individual concern is 
to have faith, follow his purpose, and trust 
us. The only failure possible comes from ad- 
mitting doubt, disintegration, and fear." 

An expression of anxiety concerning another 

man on this plane was met thus: "N has 

felt his own purpose stirring a little. ... A 
perfectly good purpose when he finds it. He 
has had many forces fighting, within and with- 
out. He will wake when this message is 
given to the world. He is too intelligent not 
to recognize truth as obvious as this will be." 
Some one asked when this would occur. 
"When Margaret completes the book she will 

170 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

publish soon." This was the first intimation 
of the way in which I was expected to carry 
out Mary K.'s instructions to make this ex- 
perience known, concerning which we had 
wondered not a little. 

It was suggested that a member of this 
person's family might help him, from the next 
plane, but this was said to be impossible, as 
they were not of the same purpose. 

"The family connection is nothing here. 
His own purposes know him, both good and 
bad, and they are fighting it out. He has an- 
swered first one, then another. But funda- 
mentally he is for justice. He will answer to 
that in the end. . . . Sometimes he will shut it 
all out and yield to the forces seeking to 
destroy him, but he will fight in the end for 
freedom and justice." 

"She is not of our forces," was the reply to 
an inquiry about an artist who left this life 
twenty years ago. This was crossed out, 
however, and "not mentally free" substi- 
tuted. 

When I was alone, I asked Mary K. about 
this woman, and she returned: "She is not a 
destructive force, but is deterrent. She is 
working out problems not met when she should 
have met them, and is fighting for growth, 
just as she soon or late will fight for progress. 

171 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

She fights for herself, her own growth, .and not 
for progress in the larger sense." 

Afterward, I learned, from some one who 
knew her well, of this woman's devouring and 
unquenchable ambition for supremacy in her 
profession. 

Whimsical Anne Lowe, writing to three 
friends of her continued association with them, 
said: "Believe — know — that we are a positive 
force, and united we stand, hurrah! Our 
faith helps all beneficent purpose. Its force 
is freed and multiplied by the sum of your 
participation." 

"I wonder if she could tell us what our pur- 
poses are?" Elizabeth said. 

"Yours is Progress, Ruth's is Light, Kath- 
arine's is Healing and Light. You are blended. 
Elizabeth to push, Ruth to illumine and inter- 
pret, Katharine to understand and soothe." 

Ruth said, wistfully: "Then all I can do is 
to shine?" 

"Interpreters are really prophets," she was 
told. "That is all the greatest prophets ever 
were. You are of their purpose, so cheer up!" 

Interrupting a little discussion as to whether 
dominant purpose is born in us or developed, 
she said: "We are born with many purposes, 
latent and striving, but as we live we make 
daily choice." 

172 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

That evening, our old friend Maynard Holt 
came for a long talk. After some entirely 
personal exchange, Cass spoke of Maynard 
as having been, in this life, a believer in 
individualism. 

Beginning with some allusion to former dis- 
cussions between them, concerning what he 
called "the temporary manifestations of So- 
cialism," Maynard replied: "Now I can tell 
you definitely that the salvation of the civilized 
world is dependent on the independence of the 
individual. . . . It's a big and glorious period 
in eternal history. The time has almost come 
for the open fight. Prepare your ground care- 
fully, and gird up your loins for combat. It's 
coming." 

A little later, in a similar connection, he 
said: "The conscious co-operation of purpose 
is the only sound principle of Socialism. That 
is eternally sound. And now that we are con- 
sciously and forcefully working in harmony 
with the great and eternal purpose, they can't 
stop us." 

"Has this new opportunity of communica- 
tion with this plane made you over there 
happier?" he was asked. 

"It has opened an entirely new channel to 
us here in this part of the world. In the Far 
East, we have the channel, but no hard-pan 

173 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

to support the stream. Here science gives us 
a foundation from which to work, but we have 
had no channel through which to reach it. . . . 
Everywhere in the civilized world the minds 
of intelligent people have turned to this. There 
is reaching and questioning and longing, and 
a dawning faith." 

At this time I did not know how frequently 
belief in the possibility of communication with 
those in a life beyond is accompanied by an in- 
clination toward the Oriental philosophies, but 
Maynard's allusion to the Far East was given 
greater significance by the replies to later 
questions. 

To an inquiry concerning the possible in- 
fluence of these teachings in Germany, he re- 
turned: "They are a philosophical and ab- 
stract-minded people, and they'll be hunting a 
plausible and satisfactory explanation of them- 
selves before long. And this is less uncom- 
plimentary than the others will be, besides 
having the undeniable advantage of being 
true, which they will have learned, by that 
time, to appreciate." 

"Can't those with eyes, ears, and under- 
standing learn wisely to control, lead, and up- 
lift the mass?" Cass asked. "In Russia, for 
example?" 

"Don't be in such a hurry. There's all 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

eternity, and evolution is slow. But the mills 
of the gods grind on, and the grist is sure. 
The Russians, like the Germans, must climb 
their own hills. America has a few to climb, 
too. This will help many, uplift a few, es- 
cape the mass, but leaven the whole. There 
is no millennium at hand. This is just a 
light by which the path is made more clear. 
It will influence many thousands, in many 
countries, but the inert mass must work its 
way on, through the old channels of evolution, 
made easier by knowledge and by experience 
of those ahead, but not to be evaded or avoided 
by any miracle." 

"But it will bring conscious purpose and 
effort to bear in helping this evolution?" 

"Surely. It is a message eagerly awaited 
and desired." 

Later that evening, I asked Mary K. whether 
she could tell me anything about the book 
Anne Lowe had said I was to publish. 

"Yes. It must be ready for publication 
by Fall." 

"Evidently sordid, material details of book 
manufacture escape your attention," I said, 
laughing. "This is the thirtieth of March, 
and you have not yet given me all the material 
for your book. When you have done that, it 
still must be edited, assembled for publication, 

175 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

copied, accepted by publishers, printed, and 
sold. Perhaps you don't know that salesmen 
for publishing-houses begin taking orders for 
Fall publications in June, and generally carry 
sample copies of the books with them?" 

She said I would have the necessary material 
in a month or six weeks, and that editing would 
"take another month," from which it is evi- 
dent that no eight-hour law is operative on her 
plane. She also advised me to see publishers 
at once, tell them what was happening, read 
them parts of communications already received, 
and arrange for Fall publication, conditional 
upon their satisfaction with the completed 
manuscript — which, not without misgivings 
concerning such procedure, I immediately pre- 
pared to act upon. 

A night or so later, Maynard Holt came 
again, with his mother, who said: "Maynard 
brought me to call." 

When we asked if she worked with those on 
this plane, she replied: "Yes, but also with 
undeveloped purposes, here before their 
time." 

Returning to the subject of Russian up- 
heaval, Maynard said: "They are goners for 
some time, now. It will take them long to 
assemble their purposes again constructively." 

"If you had been here," Cass asked, "would 

176 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

you have viewed the Russian situation and its 
effect on the world as you do now?" 

"Not quite, I think. We see farther ahead, 
and have sounder premises from which to 
argue than you've ever had there." 

"This plan, of course, includes all the people 
of the world," Cass continued. "Are those 
who leave here undeveloped, still undeveloped 
there?" 

"There is a large and growing population 
here of the undeveloped," was Maynard's 
reply, "which is one of the lesser reasons for 
our keen desire to purposize the world." 



IV 



"What place have the unfit on your plane?" 
we asked Mary K., at the conclusion of the 
sixth Lesson. 

"No place. They are errors of develop- 
ment, and have a long struggle ahead before 
they can reach the degree of development that 
should have been theirs in your life. They 
are fusions of weak purposes, and should not 
be permitted to hold back the strong and the 
fit. Development will come to them slowly, 
at best, but more quickly here than there." 

"In the present stage of our development, 
is there a sufficient incentive to progress, with- 
out hope of material gain or personal improve- 
ment?" 

"Any material gain that is for the construc- 
tive purpose is a force for light and progress 
in the larger sense. Material gain is deterrent 
only when purpose is its price. Personal am- 
bition is an incentive always. When it is for 
personal gain, at any price, it is deterrent. 
When it is ambition to serve a great purpose 

178 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

worthily, it becomes a constructive force, to 
which material gain adds only more con- 
structive force." 

"Have you all history spread out before 
you? Or are you taught after you get there?" 

"We have a grasp of results, not easily 
understood in your life. It is like seeing a 
landscape from a high and distant hill. The 
salient features are easily distinguished." 

"Are these messages for all people? Or 
only for civilized people? Do they come from 
Christians on your plane?" 

"This is a message to the civilized world. 
. . . Jew or Gentile, Christian or agnostic, all 
men are brothers in the larger sense. Un- 
civilized little brothers will grow, or come to 
this freer plane to join their larger purposes." 

"Then from whom do these Lessons come?" 

"From great constructive purposes. There 
is no sect or creed, color or prejudice, here." 

Saturday, April 6th, Mrs. Bruce came again 
to talk to her husband, and he thanked her 
for a public gift which she had just made in 
his name, promising such co-operation in the 
work it promoted as could be given from his 
plane. She said that she had felt suddenly 
impelled to make this contribution, and had 
acted at once upon the impulse. 

"You all feel impelled to work with us as 

179 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

soon as you realize we are here near you," he 
told her, "and the things we can do together 
are as yet undreamed in your life." 

She spoke of his former interest in the arts, 
which he said he had left behind as "mate- 
rial manifestations." Discussing the relation 
of artistic expression to constructive purpose, 
he said: "Art, when it is a real interpreta- 
tion of life, is a high and noble thing, but the 
art that is merely self-expression is a disinte- 
grating force. Too much of it is that now." 

At that time, she had read none of the Les- 
sons, and he told her of the seven purposes of 
construction, continuing: "To purpose of any 
nature only similar purpose calls, and when 
the call is heard there is no choice but. to 
answer. No choice after the call has been 
admitted to consciousness. It may be shut 
out and denied, but once listened to, whether 
for construction or for destruction, the answer 
is bound to come. That is why we so in- 
sistently urge the discovery of purpose and the 
beauty of construction. Character, as you 
understand it, results from the purposes ad- 
mitted to consciousness. Not always recog- 
nized, but always let in." 

He had some difficulty in getting one word 
written, and she spoke of his erasures of wrong 
starts as extraordinary and unusual. 

180 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

"Not a bit unusual, if you think how often 
the words of your languages fail as convincing 
and accurate symbols. You often correct them 
yourselves. A translation may be made in any 
of several ways, depending on the reactions of 
the translator to certain symbols. So, when 
Margaret reacts freely, we let it stand. When 
she fails, wholly or in part, we correct it." 

In view of later statements concerning the 
force used in these manifestations, I assume this 
to mean, not that I make the translation men- 
tioned, but that certain symbols used in transa- 
ction are sometimes difficult to convey through 
me. Frequently other words have been sub- 
stituted for those originally begun, when there 
was trouble in writing them. Another explana- 
tion of these occasional difficulties of trans- 
mission was suggested afterward, first by 
Frederick and later more explicitly by Mary 
Kendal. 

"Do you see us visibly?" Mrs. Bruce asked. 

"Yes, of course. We see all you do, and 
more. We see motives, where you see ap- 
pearance." 

[Long afterward (May 26th), Mr. Kendal 
asked Anne Lowe whether she could see sun- 
sets, and she replied: "No, but we see their 
equivalent in dawn of purpose." 

[She had previously expressed approval of a 

13 181 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

room, which had been arranged with great 
care for one dear to her, and he asked whether 
she saw its physical details, or only its effects 
upon the minds of persons entering it, to which 
her answer was: "We never see material 
things. We see their significance." 

[Similarly, Mary K. said (May 31st), "We 
read your thought frequently, and always per- 
ceive motive, intention, and the mental and 
spiritual significance of your reactions to ma- 
terial things, in themselves unimportant. So 
we say we see the thing itself, because we per- 
ceive its essential significance."] 

Mrs. Bruce said her daughter wanted to 
know whether dogs continue to exist after life 
here, feeling that they must. 

"They do not come as animals, exactly. 
But there is no manifestation of force that is 
not purpose, and purposes are united and 
gather here, in ways not possible for you to 
understand, in the progress toward the great 
purpose." Ten days later, Frederick stated 
this more explicitly. 

After a pause, Mr. Bruce said: "We are so 
full of our fine but tremendous task here, at 
this great moment of crisis, that I'm afraid 
I'm not very entertaining. We talk shop to 
you, because that is the reason we can come 
so freely now." 

182 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

"You refer to the great crisis?" she asked. 
"Not to our present crisis here?" 

"Germany is bereft of all purpose. Pur- 
poses of destruction have left her. She has 
one sole, frantic force remaining — fear. After 
that, destruction, long followed, will turn and 
rend her, and fear will be lost in despair." 

"Aren't there some good Germans?" she 
suggested, adding that their daughter thought 
it unfair to condemn a whole people for the 
sins of some of them. 

"Many good Germans have admitted to 
consciousness the call of destructive purposes, 
and have for the moment joined forces against 
us. For many years this preparation has been 
going on. No German who has ever admitted 
the forces of disintegration is quite free from 
them now. There were some officers who took 
their own lives and faced the consequences, 
rather than join forces with the dominant 
purpose of their people. No person can live 
in Germany now who is not party to disin- 
tegration. No German lives in the world, 
who still calls himself German, who is not 
party to disintegration." 

"You say they have 'joined forces against 
us for the moment,'" I mentioned. 

"Some of them will see light, and build force- 
fully for true progress. Some of them will 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

destroy while they live. Some will be for 
years deterrent, and the end is impossible to 
foresee." 

A day or two after this, when I was alone, 
I asked Mary K. what JVtr. Bruce meant by 
saying that once the call of purpose is ad- 
mitted to consciousness, there is no choice 
but to answer. 

"He meant that your personal struggle is 
only with the purposes admitted to conscious- 
ness. All forces are constantly trying to reach 
you, to enlist you for the great struggle. Once 
admitted to your consciousness, you have no 
choice but to answer, and the struggle between 
opposing forces is fought with your help. 
Many waver between the two, now lending aid 
to this one, now to that. A few choose in- 
stantly; some to progress, some to delay, 
some to build, some to destroy. This is what 
men call character." 

"He said also that no German who has ever 
admitted to consciousness the forces of dis- 
integration is quite free from them now. 
Why?" 

"Because there is in your life, as here, a 
group loyalty. But whereas here we are 
grouped by purpose, there you are grouped 
largely by geographical location. And any 
German who justified this war in the beginning 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

is party to disintegration to some extent still. 
His group loyalty holds him, though his pur- 
pose protest. That will be the final test. 
Purpose, or finite loyalty to finite group." 

One or two interesting statements were 
made, about this time, during an interview 
with the widow of a well-known New York 
surgeon. 

"Your husband's work is healing still," Mary 
K. told her. After enumerating the construc- 
tive purposes, she continued: "Healing was 
always his purpose, and he follows it still, with 
all his great force. He has a freer field here, 
and fulfils his purpose fully. That is the 
reason he is unable to be here to-day. The 
Germans are liberating many bewildered and 
fear-stricken souls, and all our great healers 
are held by their need." 

When we spoke of ways of finding happiness "\ 
she said: "Who fears the purpose he should I 
serve with force destroys it. Fear not. Find / 
it, serve it, and happiness of a positive kind I 
will find you. . . . Your force is scattered among \ 
many latent purposes. Find the dominant / 
call of Progress to your soul, and follow that, I 
leaving the rest behind." 

Again, a day or two later, the present pre- 
occupation of healers on the next plane was 
mentioned, when I asked Mary K. whether a 

185 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

certain woman would come at a given time to 
meet friends who had asked for her. 

"She may. I shall try to have her here," 
she said. "Her work is healing, and all our 
healers are working constantly. . . . She was 
an artist with you, and somewhat deterrent. 
She has found a new purpose." 

The day before the last Lessons were given, 
Maynard Holt, explaining to a friend the seven 
purposes, said: ? Every human being who is 
for progress ^ and construction serves one or 
more of these purposes. : v It is by them that 
what you know as human force is ultimately 
grouped for eternal advance. Our effort now 
is to unite all forces for Progress in conscious 
co-operation." After speaking of Germany's 
unity of purpose, he went on: "She is, and 
has been for years, the center of forces and 
purposes of disintegration in your life. She 
is, in theological parlance, the ally of his 
Satanic Majesty. We have learned here that 
there is no evil, per se. There is only purpose, 
constructive or destructive. . . . But the forces 
of disintegration are gathering for a battle of 
wits and morals, and we are emulating Ger- 
many in just one thing. . . . We are preparing. 
We want you to wake up and realize what is 
going on. We want every one of you to find 
and recognize notlmly your own purpose, but 

186 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

the other fellow's. Find out who is for prog- 
ress, and who merely camouflages disintegra- 
tion. Conscious co-operation of constructive 
purpose is warranted to beat the devil. He 
can't defeat it, nor yet delay it. (O) That is 
what it means to all of us. . . . Come on in. 
The water's fine!" 



As has been said, our invisible friends have 
seemed somewhat hazy in their perceptions of 
time and place and of mundane details gen- 
erally, and they have shown no inclination to 
concern themselves with our trivial personal 
affairs. When pressed for specific statements 
about small details, their replies have been 
sometimes in exact accordance with the fact 
as we have perceived it, sometimes not, but 
they have rarely diverged widely from the 
truth. In the larger matters directly related 
to spiritual unity and growth they have 
been correct, as when Mary K. explicitly 
stated, March 23d (already quoted), that 
the German offensive then in progress and 
up to that time successful would ultimately 
fail. 

On one occasion,[aproposj3f certain questions 

her husband had asked, Mary Kendal said: 

"We are not here to satisfy intellectual or any 

other kind of curiosity. If we were not sure 

you would use this information for construc- 
ts 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

tion, we wouldn't fuss about it — except you 
and I, Manzie." 

Several times during March and April, how- 
ever, Mary K. gave me correct and specific 
information about various minor affairs, and 
these incidents are mentioned here because I 
have been asked repeatedljy whether such 
statements had been made and verified, rather 
than because undue importance is attached to 
them. 

For example, hastening to an appointment 
one morning (March 29th), I carelessly left 
my muff in a taxicab. Discovering the loss an 
hour later, I telephoned to the cab company, 
to be told that no report had been received 
from the cabman, but that they would try to 
locate him at one of their various stands. It 
was arranged that I should call at their office 
for it late in the afternoon, had it been found. 

During luncheon, which I took at a restau- 
rant, Mary K. indicated that she had some- 
thing to say, and on the back of an envelop 
wrote: "Your muff is found for you." Two 
hours later, when I reached home, the muff had 
been returned by the cabman. 

Another incident, less accurate in detail, but 
substantially correct, concerned Mr. Kendal 
and my record-book. Having had, during his 
brief stay in New York, no leisure in which to 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

read the record — which then contained only 
the genesis of this experience, Frederick's 
first interviews with his mother, and some 
messages from Mary Kendal not included 
in my letters to her husband — he had taken the 
book away with him (March 20th), and three 
or four days later I began looking for its re- 
turn. When, on the 29th or 30th (exact date 
not noted), it had not arrived, I asked Mary 
K. whether she knew anything about it, and 
she replied that it had been sent and would 
probably reach me that day. At that time 
the record, wrapped and addressed, lay on his 
desk, where he had left it with instructions 
that it be mailed when he left home for the 
Easter week-end. It had been overlooked, 
and he found it there when he returned on 
the following Monday. Apparently Mary K. 
perceived only his intention and belief that it 
was on its way to me. 

On the 1st of April she told me that a letter 
concerning these communications, then several 
days overdue, for which I waited with great 
anxiety, had at last been written. 

"Really written?" I asked. "Or is this one 
of those successfully started things you regard 
as accomplished?" 

"Really written." 

At the same time she promised me other 

190 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

letters, from persons specifically named, and 
gave me certain information concerning a 
member of the Gaylord family. 

Two days later, when none of these letters 
had appeared, I said, "Where are those letters 
you promised me?" 

"The letters are coming, fearful and wonder- 
ful messenger," she humorously assured me. 
"You have not made a m . . . ft? . . . friend . . . 
free . . . fan torn (O) friend in vain." 

Laughing, I asked: "Is 'fan torn friend' 
right?" 

She said it was. 

Half an hour later the long-delayed letter 
arrived, and as she had told me, it was dated 
April 1st. The other letters came later the 
same day, the one from Mrs. Wylie verifying 
the information already given by Mary K. 
about a member of her family. 

On Monday, April 1st, I sent a copy of 
Frederick's recent interviews with his mother 

and sister to Mrs. Gaylord at K , hoping 

that it might reach her by Wednesday morning. 
Wednesday night Mary K. told me that an 
expected letter from Mrs. Gaylord had not 
been written, adding: "She waits for the 
record." A week later, after a happy visit in 

K , Mrs. Gaylord returned to her home 

and notified me that she had not received the 

191 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

manuscript from me. Fearing that it had been 
lost in the mails, I asked Mary K. about it, 
and was told that it would be received. This 
was repeated at intervals covering several 
days. 

When, on Monday, April 15th, two weeks 
from the day it had been sent, it was missing 
still, I told Mary K. that it must have been 
lost. 

"They shall have it soon," she said. "It is 
not lost, but delayed." 

"Shall I make a duplicate for them?" 

"You must trust us." 

"You are positive that it will arrive?" 

"Yes, it will." 

It was delivered to Mrs. Gay lord the follow- 
ing day, April 16th. 

On one occasion I asked Mary K. about a 
woman for whom I had been requested to ar- 
range an interview with a person on the next 
plane, but about whom I knew nothing what- 
ever. 

"She is deterrent," was the reply, and during 
the subsequent interview, for the first time 
since the beginning of this experience, I en- 
countered an individual whose outlook and 
desire was limited to the narrowly personal. 

One of the most striking of these examples 
of specific information occurred on the night 

192 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

of Tuesday, April 2d, the day of the Senatorial 
elections. 

Cass said: "Ask Mary K. whether she will 
answer a specific, mundane question for me." 
When she had written her name and indicated 
her willingness, he inquired: "Who was elected 
in Wisconsin to-day, Lenroot or Davies?" 

"Are you there?" I questioned, when no 
reply came. 

"Yes." 

After another delay, when the pencil wan- 
dered lightly and aimlessly, she wrote: "Len- 
root." Supposing that she had finished, I put 
the pencil aside, but she summoned me again, 
to add: "Lenroot elected by latest count. 
Close in some places. We consider him 
elected." Cass looked at his watch. It was 
five minutes past twelve. 

The next morning our papers announced Mr. 
Lenroot in the lead, with final returns not yet 
received, and not until Cass reached his office 
did we discover how truly "exclusive" our in- 
formation had been. He learned then that 
the suburban editions of several New York 
City papers, which probably went to press 
about the time we talked to Mary K., prac- 
tically conceded the election to Mr. Davies, 
reporting him ahead by returns then available. 

Of many other specific statements that were 

193 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

either absolutely correct, or so nearly correct 
that Mr. Kendal's theory of a difference of 
perceptive method might easily account for the 
error, one is notable. On Sunday, May 19th, 
I asked Mary K. whether she could tell me 
anything about the projected German drive. 

"Yes. It will be fierce, but futile. All 
forces here see her doom, and the war will last 
only as long as unsupported human endeavor 
can endure against eternal purpose. Germany 
has no ally here. The forces that have im- 
pelled her for these many years are overpowered 
by world-purpose, and have left Germany to 
her destruction, while they prepare to destroy 
the finest spiritual fruits of victory." 

Similarly, while writing to friends at the 
front of our entire confidence in the outcome 
of the Picardy drive then in progress, May 
30th, I paused to ask Mary K. whether she 
had anything more to say about the war. 

"Only that we are the victors. Germany 
does not win this drive, either. Our forces 
rally, and the end is near. Defeat this time 
will leave them despairing and afraid." 

To this Maynard Holt added, "All the forces 
have withstood the blow and gather for the 
final and decisive defeat of Germany." 



VI 



The actual existence of intelligent, invisible 
forces, constantly doing battle for and against 
spiritual progress, through possession of what 
we are wont to call our souls, was at first diffi- 
cult for me to accept literally, the idea being in 
direct opposition to my whole mental tendency. 
While the theory was interesting, it seemed 
hardly credible in its specific, individual ap- 
plication. However, I was soon given a mani- 
festation of the strength and (pertinacity! of 
the ]disintegrating3 forces, which — although it 
ultimately strengthened my conviction, prov- 
ing highly (corroboratives—threatened for a time 
to end this effort, as far as I was concerned. 

The last two Lessons were given to me on 
the 12th of April, and it had been arranged 
that Mr. T , the representative of a pub- 
lishing-house, should come on the evening of 
the thirteenth for a demonstration of the com- 
munication with the next plane. From the 
day this arrangement was contemplated, fre- 
quent assertions were made under Mary K.'s 

195 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

signature, concerning Mr. T and his at- 
titude toward this experience, many of which 
were afterward proved untrue, and all of 
which I doubted, notwithstanding repeated 
proofs, already quoted, of her general correct- 
ness of statement. Day by day these mes- 
sages grew more confusing, and I less able to 
account for them by any theory then formed. 
That a deliberate " drive" by malign powers 
was in pi ogress never occurred to me, and 
would have seeme T too absurd to credit, even 
had I thought of it. 

As there seemed to be no close tie between 

Mr. T and any of those from whom he 

had expressed a desire to hear, no great eager- 
ness on either side to complete a circle of which 
each was a part, I felt that the interview might 
present difficulties not encountered before, and 
resolved to do no writing during the day, re- 
serving my strength for the evening's work. 

In the morning, however, I had occasion to 
ask Mary K. for some brief information. Be- 
ginning, as usual, with her signature — some- 
what haltingly done — the pencil wrote quickly, 
but erratically: "Mr. Farrow is dead." This 
man is a business associate of Cass's, living 
abroad. 

Startled, I thought I must have taken the 
message incorrectly, but it was repeated. 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

"Mr. Farrow is dead. Cass will hear later." 
When I insisted that this could not be true, 
it was reiterated. "Yes, he is here, and b . . . 
bles . . . latter . . . bewildered. Mary K." 

Our personal relations with Mr. Farrow, 
while pleasant, have never been close, being 
based entirely upon a business connection, and 
my affections were in no way responsible for 
my resistance to this announcement, nor would 
our personal affairs have been in a Ai y way in- 
fluenced by his death. But did not believe it. 
"Farrow is here with us. May . . . Mary 
K." This signature was slow and irresolute, 
beginning as Maynard and ending as Mary 
K., but lacking the firmness of either — an in- 
decision and inconsequence characteristic, I 
have since learned, of disintegrating force in 
these invasions. 

"Was he killed in an accident?" 
"No. Pneumonia. Maynard. Tell Cass." 
"Shall I telephone to Cass now?" 
"No. I am watching over him. Maynard." 
The use of the word "dead" in this connec- 
tion was surprising, since the whole trend of 
former communications had been toward elimi- 
nation of the idea of death. Once more I 
asked Mary K. if they were sure there had 
been no mistake. 

"Yes. He is dead to your life." 

14 197 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

"You mean Farrow of P ? Not his 

brother? Or his son?" 

"Yes, P . It is true. You will hear 

soon. Cass must go there." 

I telephoned to Cass, saying nothing of this 
experience, and found him in good spirits, 
proving that he had not heard of Mr. Far- 
row's death. Returning to the pencil, I told 
Mary K. I did not believe the information was 
correct. 

"Yes, he is dead. A telegram on the way 
to Cass. He will receive it soon. Before one 
o'clock." 

Some time later, having heard nothing from 
Cass, I told Mary K. again that there had been 
a mistake. 

" No, it is true. Mr. Farrow of P is here 

with us. Cass will know in a few minutes. 
He will telephone." 

I warned her then that my faith in her veraci- 
ty was at stake, and that while I could not doubt 
that Frederick, Mary Kendal, Maynard Holt, 
and others, had communicated through me, I 
could not take the responsibility of publishing 
anything she had told me unless I could trust 
her in all things, adding: "If this is not true 
how can I be sure that any of it is?" 

"Mary K. It is true. Don't doubt." 

I said I had no wish to doubt, but that un- 

198 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

less this message came from some other than 
Mary K., I could not believe her again, if it 
proved, as I was sure it would, to be untrue. 
I began to suspect that ^disintegrating forces! 
were at work. 

"It comes from the (constructive force. J Be 
confident. It perplexes you." 

Later experience has taught me that while 
either force may be in complete command at 
moments, during these struggles for control, 
not infrequently a message begun by one is 
finished by the other. During the three days 
of this first persistent attack, however, I held 
no key to the mystery, and the occasional 
clearly constructive and characteristic messages 
from Mary K. and Maynard Holt merely added 
to my bewilderment and dismay. Yet never 
for one instant during those three days did I 
accept the repeated statements of Mr. Farrow's 
death as true. Weeks afterward, Mary K. told 
me why I was not deceived. 

Since that time, too, I have learned more 
clearly to distinguish personality by the de- 
gree and quality of force applied to the pencil, 
which varies greatly with individuals, though 
it sometimes varies in the same individual at 
different times. But in the first experience it 
did not occur to me to apply that test of 
identification. 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

All that Saturday afternoon the argument 
went on at intervals, I insisting that Mr. Far- 
row was not dead, the pencil reiterating that 
he was. 

At two o'clock Maynard said: "Believe in 
us, Margaret. We can help you better." It 
is evident now that this referred to the con- 
flict with the disintegrating force, but at the 
moment I misunderstood it and reminded him 
of the many specific and inaccurate state- 
ments made, during the past few days, regard- 
ing the man who was coming that evening by 
appointment, asking if this were more mis- 
information of the same sort, to which the 
reply was: " No, Farrow is here. He is dazed, 
but will be taken care of." 

An hour later, I returned to the pencil, beg- 
ging them to tell me, before definite informa- 
tion reached me from other sources, that there 
had been a mistake. 

"Mary K. You must not doubt. We shall 
lose control of you if you do." When I said 
that what I sought was truth, she said: "I 
know, but you doubt our control, and weaken 
it." 

"I also doubt my own correctness." 

"You are correct." As, indeed, I was. Her 
message reached my consciousness. 

At three o'clock the insistence that Mr. 

200 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

Farrow was dead continued, and attempts were 
made to explain former inaccuracies, on the 
plea of a difference in plane, creating "errors 
in terms of finite space." 

Shortly before five, it was said that Cass 
had received news of Mr. Farrow's death, 
and was on his way home. A few minutes 
later Mary K. warned me again. 

"You must not doubt. . . . You can't be a 
messenger without faith." 

"How am I to know when you are telling 
the truth and when it is error?" 

"The truth is the truth, and you must learn 
to differentiate between the planes." I sus- 
pect that she intended the last word to be 
"forces," and that control was wrested from 
her before it was written. 

Resenting the whole confused situation, and 
entirely unable to account for my conviction 
that this message was false, I said: "If Cass 
tells me, when he comes home, that Mr. Far- 
row is dead, I will believe anything you tell 
me in future. If he is not dead, I'll have 
nothing further to do with you or your book." 

"Mary K. You will go on with our work. 
He is dead." 

At this point, Cass arrived. He said that 
he had received neither letter nor cablegram 
from Mr. Farrow for ten days, although an 

201 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

expected and important letter from him was 
some time overdue. This seemed to lend 
color to the report of his death, but my con- 
viction was unshaken. 

From the beginning of these communications 
with the next plane, although at times excessive- 
ly fatigued, I had enjoyed an increasing mental 
serenity, but with the first announcement of 
Mr. Farrow's death, this had given way to the 
peculiar nervous instability and apprehension 
invariably accompanying these mischievous 
invasions. 

By night my mind was in a turmoil and my 
nerves on edge, my confidence shaken, my 
faith in the balance — which did not lessen the 
difficulties of an interview prompted chiefly 
by intellectual interest. Establishing connec- 
tion with an unfamiliar personality is not easy, 
at best, and frequently some time is required 
to obtain free communication. On this oc- 
casion, instead of devoting the evening to per- 
fecting one connection, several persons were 
called, all but one responding, and the mes- 
sages, with one or two exceptions, were un- 
satisfactory. There were vain and fatiguing 
efforts to write a name unknown to any of us, 
and most of the efforts to obtain specific 
evidential data were unsuccessful. Whether 
this was due to my own lack of confidence, 

202 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

to interference by the enemy, or to the fact 
that at no time have the individuals communi- 
cating through me concerned themselves with 
personal and specific details — except occasional- 
ly, for my own greater conviction — I do not 
know. 

At midnight, when this interview was over 
and we were alone, although wearied to the 
point of exhaustion, I asked again about Mr. 
Farrow, receiving the same reply, with a varia- 
tion to the effect that the cablegram announcing 
his death had been delayed by the censor, and 
with occasional phrases of appeal and encour- 
agement — merely intensifying my bewilder- 
ment — from Mary K. and Maynard. 

"Are you sure you haven't been away and 
let in disintegrating forces?" I asked Mary K. 

"No, we have been here. They can't touch 
your purpose. Don't fear. You will be per- 
fectly reassured soon," was her reply, which, 
had we but recognized it, was an intimation 
that disintegrating forces had been in partial 
control in spite of all effort to overcome them. 

Again I asked why the word "dead" had 
been used, and was told: "That is what the 
cable to Cass says." Which manifestly did 
not explain. 

Sunday morning, Maynard Holt's familiar 
signature came at once, followed by a long, 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

personal message to a friend who was present, 
steadily written, and pointed by an occasional 
characteristic turn of phrase, indicating a clear 
and uninterrupted connection. 

When this had been finished, Cass asked, 
"Shall I go to the office for that cable?" 

"It is not there." 

"It's all a mistake?" I urged. 

"Farrow is here." 

But I knew he was not there. Had he been 
present in the flesh, I could not have been 
more certain that he had not left this plane. 

All day we discussed the bearing of these 
persistent misstatements — provided they were 
misstatements — upon the experience as a whole, 
and I was oppressed, in addition to my per- 
sonal disappointment, by a sense of my re- 
sponsibility to those others to whom this new 
faith had brought active happiness and hope. 

I had arranged to go to L on the following 

Tuesday, to spend a few days with the Gay- 
lord family; Mr. Kendal expected to arrive in 
New York a week or ten days later, anticipat- 
ing further communication with his wife; and 
various other appointments were pending. 
But though I could neither question the au- 
thenticity of former personal communications, 
nor deny the constructive quality of the Les- 
sons, I felt that I could not continue to act 

204 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

as intermediary if it were possible for persons 
like Mary K. and Maynard to lend themselves 
to this sort of thing, nor could I encourage 
others to hold a belief after it had become 
impossible to me. 

In the afternoon, Mary K. told me to go to 

L as soon as possible. When we asked 

about Mr. Farrow, Maynard's signature pre- 
ceded the message. 

" He is here. Why don't you accept it?" 

"I don't know why I can't," was my reply. 
"Why don't you convince my mind, as you 
have at other times? Why don't you make me 
feel it? I can't believe it's true." 

"You have the statement of two friends." 

"You've been mistaken before in specific 
statements." 

"Only in those relating to dimensions of 
finite space, which we are unable to gauge 
accurately." 

That evening, Mary K.'s signature came 
first. "You must see how foolish it was to 
mistrust us," the pencil wrote. "Mr. Farrow 
is here, and Cass will learn of it soon." 

"Unless you take refuge again in that differ- 
ence of plane," I commented, rather bitterly. 
"Why don't you remember it before, instead 
of after, the error it creates?" 

"Because you should not distrust us." 

205 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

"But why not encourage me to trust you by 
remembering that difference of plane in the first 
place?" I insisted. "Why be so explicit about 
things you know may be inaccurately stated?" 

"I do not deceive you intentionally. We 
feel that a thing certain of accomplishment is 
done, and are frequently misled into prema- 
ture statements by the strength of intention, 
or purpose, or movement in a given direction. 
We are accurate from our point of view, and 
not always able to gauge yours." 

Admitting this to be conceivable, I said: 
"Now tell me about Mr. Farrow." 

"Mr. Farrow is here with us. When Cass 
gets to the office in the morning he will find 
the truth." Again the signature was hesi- 
tating and indefinite, first Maynard, then 
Mary K. I felt that neither of them wrote 
it, but could not reconcile the frequent con- 
structive statements, urging faith and con- 
tinuance of this work, to destructive purpose, 
nor could I understand why, if Mary K. and 
Maynard were present, they did not warn me 
of false statements by malign forces, provided 
such were the case. 

Monday morning, the situation was un- 
changed, save that the statements were slight- 
ly elaborated. Repeatedly I asked whether 
they were not confusing Mr. Farrow with 

206 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

some other member of his family, or whether 
they had accepted serious illness as death. 

A curious statement followed this sugges- 
tion, under Maynard's signature. "Farrow is 
both here and there. He is here in essence, 
there in body. . . . He is both here and there 
for some time after death." 

Immediately afterward, however, when I 
said that this sounded preposterous, Mary 
K.'s name was written, with: "Mr. Farrow is 
here. He is dead to you. Actually now dead. 
Go to L at once." 

"I can't go to L , with affairs in this 

state," I told her. 

"You will know soon. Wait." 

Maynard followed, with an appeal to "have 
faith," adding: "It will be clear soon." 

This went on, at intervals, until after two 
o'clock, when I had promised an interview to 
a woman who had not visited me before. 
Fully resolved to tell her that I could take no 
messages for her, I made one last attempt to 
obtain the truth before her arrival — this time 
with partial success. 

"Maynard. It is a mistake . . ." 

At that moment, my guest arrived. I told 
her that I might be unable to get any satis- 
factory communications for her, but her daugh- 
ter, who left this plane years ago, came at 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

once, writing steadily and clearly, with the 
exception of one brief interruption. She told 
her mother of the seven purposes and their 
meaning, urging her, as had all the others, to 
put herself consciously in touch with con- 
structive purpose, and to open her mind and 
spirit to those on the next plane who were 
eager to work with her. 

When I was again alone, I returned to the 
pencil, which wrote quickly and strongly: 
"Maynard. It is a mistake about Farrow. 
The . . ." Here again the opposing forces 
evidently gained control. "Farrow here, but 
not your Farrow." 

"Then why have you insisted that he was 
our Farrow?" 

"He led us to think so." 

I said with some emphasis that I wanted 
a better explanation than that. 

"Maynard. You are messenger for us only 
if you trust us." 

A fortnight later, after a second, similar 
experience, Mary K. told me, when I asked 
about this first confused period: "We had a 
terrific struggle for you then. We told you 
the truth, but the other forces controlled the 
pencil. . . . The forces of disintegration com- 
pelled us for the moment. We were not theirs, 
but they overpowered and used us." 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

Early in June, while preparing this manu- 
script, I asked her: "Was it you who wrote, 
'You must not doubt. We shall lose control 
of you if you do'?" 

"Yes. We were fighting for your faith." 

"Can you tell me why you did not explain 
then — why you have never explained — that the 
enemy had control?" 

"We have certain limitations in conflicts 
of this nature. ... In actual conflict we can 
only affirm. Remember that. . . . When at- 
tacked by disintegrating force, the only way we 
can help you is to call to your purpose and to 
affirm our own. In your individual struggle we 
may not interfere, even when it concerns our 
work. You must believe or doubt, according 
to your own choice. . . . We cannot tell you that 
disintegrat ing forces threaten you, until you 
have remgm'zcd jjigm^ Then we can help you 
repeHhem. Always we call to you and try to 
encourage you. . . . You must make your own 
choice and your own deductions, and learn in 
that way to discriminate between the forces 
appealing to you. Details of your personal 
struggles may not be explained. They are 
your development." 

Knowing nothing of all this in April, how- 
ever, I insisted upon a detailed explanation of 
the Farrow mystery, and again the disintegrat- 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

ing forces played upon my doubt and bewilder- 
ment, elaborating excuses for the mistake, in 
Maynard's name. 

Refusing to accept any of these ingenious 
but illogical assertions, I contended that they 
were unfair to me, having first specifically 
volunteered this erroneous information, which 
they now attempted to account for by obvious- 
ly specious explanations. 

"We volunteer information pertaining to the 
message we have for the world through you." 

This, it will be perceived, was an affirma- 
tion indirectly disclaiming the Farrow messages, 
but I did not so recognize it, and reminded 
them that they had reproached me for not 
trusting them in this matter. 

"You are logical within your limits," was 
Maynard's only reply to that. 

"And you still expect me to go on with your 
work?" 

"You have had many manifestations of our 
force," Mary K. returned. "Mr. Kendal will 
show you how this occurred." 

When I mentioned, with some heat, that 
some one would have to show me, as they had 
asked me to shoulder a heavy responsibility in 
this matter, she said: "You are puzzled and 
frightened, but knowledge of our constructive 
work through you should decide your action." 

210 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

Remembering how fear and grief and de- 
spair, in certain cases, and cynical indifference 
in others, had been banished from the lives 
of the men and women to whom these messages 
had come, I conceded the constructive work. 

"Then come along and build. . . . You are 
unable to distinguish the difficulties under 
which we work. Many messengers have failed 
to convey the message we have tried to give. 
. . . Many mistakes happen with the best 
messengers." 

"Was this my mistake?" I asked. 

"No. You make only one mistake, so far. 
You shut us out by doubt. Don't doubt. 
We are all working for the same great end." 

Eventually, although far from satisfied about 

the Farrow affair, I decided to go to L , 

feeling that if disillusionment must come to 
the Gaylord family, it would better come now 
than later, but still hoping that some explana- 
tion would be given while I was with them. 
In this I was disappointed. Not until a fort- 
night later did I even begin to understand it. 
But after the first interview with Frederick 

at L , I wrote Cass (April 17th): "If ever 

I had any doubts about the truth of this, they 
are gone! Somebody did something I don't 
understand, but this is real." 

I have given this experience in some detail, 

m 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

not only because it corroborates the state- 
ments that malevolent and crafty forces are 
about us, striving to thwart progressive effort, 
but because it seems also to offer at least a 
partial explanation of the inconsistencies and 
contradictions that long have baffled and dis- 
couraged investigators of psychic phenomena. 
Obviously, until the identity and character of 
the invisible communicating personality have 
been established and clearly recognized, and 
the purpose prompting the communication 
manifested through a series of experiments, it 
is unsafe to rely upon information received in 
this way. And it is equally obvious that 
^forces of disintegration) could scarcely find a 
more fruitful method of implanting in the hu- 
manfmind/doubt and cynicism concerning the 
possibility of obtaining authentic and en- 
lightening revelations from planes beyond, than 
by contradicting and confusing such messages, 
or by deliberately misleading the applicant for 
information. 

Later experience brought further demonstra- 
tion of the diligence of the sinister purposes, 
together with greater knowledge of ways to 
defeat them. 



VII 



Before beginning the Gaylord interviews 

at L (April 17th), Mary K. asked me not to 

tell the family the details of the Farrow episode. 

"Are you ever going to explain that clearly?" 
I asked. 

"Not until you know more about these 
conditions." 

That night, for the first time, I saw a pho- 
tograph of Frederick. During the year of her 
grief and despair Mrs. Gaylord had been 
unable to bear the added poignancy of a por- 
trait's suggestion, and only when I arrived, to 
manifest his actual presence in the family circle, 
was the hidden photograph — a singularly life- 
like and virile reproduction — brought to light. 

"Hooray!" he began, after the customary 
signature. "Here we are again, all of us to- 
gether at last! Dad! (0)" It will be re- 
membered that this was the first time that 
either his father or his younger sister, Lois, 
had witnessed these manifestations. "You 
have been the one I wanted most, after Mother. 



15 



213 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

The girls I knew I could get sometime, for this 
is the future for everybody with purpose, and 
I knew they'd come to know me again soon. 
But you and Mother dearest I had to have 
(O) right now. You both need this knowledge 
and intercourse as much as I do. The fuller 
development that comes there with age and 
experience, and here — where there is no age 
except experience, makes me nearer to you and 
Mother in feeling and outlook than I am to 
the girls and Dick. Not that I am not one 
with all of you. But being here has showed 
me the reasons for the things — protective, over- 
seeing, far-seeing things — that you stand for, 
and have learned there through your experience 
in that preliminary life. So we are a lot 
nearer of an age than we used to be. Now we 
are off together again, and there is no reason, 
unless somebody backslides, why we can't keep 
step through the countless aeons of eternity. 
. . . Mother dearest, this time I sure am in. 
Thank you for putting me on the mantel. I 
like it. Coming home is lots happier business 
now. It used to make me sorry to see you all 
so sad. But this is bully ! . . . Dad, look happy 
for the boy! He's here for keeps now," 

Mr. Gaylord had generally spoken of Fred- 
erick, during his life here, as "the Boy." I 
had never heard him use any other name. 

214 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

" Can you give your father the proof of your 
presence that you give me?" his mother asked. 
"Not only by writing, but by the feeling in 
his heart?" 

"I will in time. Remember, he hasn't yet 
grown used to this communion. It hits every- 
body hard, at first, and this fluency is incon- 
ceivable to any one who has not seen and felt 
it at first hand. Give us time to get used to 
it, and Dad will be as fully in touch with 
me and my life as he ever was when I lived 
there. The shock and grief of my supposed 
departure are taking force from him still, but 
he'll see, just as you have, that I am the better 
and bigger for this one great experience, and 
that I never was so deeply and truly a part 
of his life. . . . Come on, now everybody talk! 
I sure do preach, but you called the turn the 
other day, Mother dearest. It's my job to 
get, this across, first to you who are my own, 
and through you to every one you can reach. 
It's all our jobs." 

Both Mrs. Gay lord and Lois had had some 
success in establishing communication with the 
next plane, through the pencil — obtaining de- 
tached words, and some names. And the 
former now asked: "Where were you Sunday? 
I tried to get you." 

"I had a big job, attacking a pro-German 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

newspaper editor in South Africa. He didn't 
give in, either, but we'll get him yet. He 
doesn't fight openly. He poses as a Pharisee, 
but he's really pro-German, and thanks God 
he is like other Germans." 

Lois asked whether there are any pro- 
Germans where he is, and he replied that 
disintegrating force is "pro- anything that 
destroys." 

During his last illness, one of his diversions 
had been to plan with his father a long journey 
they were to take together when he should be 
convalescent. Now, after a pause, he wrote 
slowly and distinctly, as if to emphasize the 
deliberation of his intention: 

"Dad, do you remember that trip we were 
going to take? You take it with Mother some 
day, and I'll go with you, and we'll do all the 
things we planned. And I can tell you, if< 
you will just let me in and listen, all the things 
you want to hear. We don't need a messen- 
ger, you and I, but as long as I can't get to 
you any other way, I'll use one. I can help 
you actually — physically, mentally, spiritually, 
materially — as for so many years you helped 
me. It was due to you and Mother that I got 
such a good start here. Now I am here, it is 
for all of us still, as it always was. But it's 
my turn to lift a little. You carried me for 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

years. Let me come in again now, as a real, 
existing, active, growing force — your son, sir, 
wanting to be nearer and more intimately 
yours than ever. You go on and take our trip, 
and I promise I'll go with you. Frederick." 

A little later, he said: "I wish there could 
be any way of showing you visibly the radiant 
force I am, now that we are all united. You 
have to be translated to this plane before you 
can understand what it means to be brought 
back into the family circle. Not all families, 
but ours. We are all of kindred purposes, and 
there's no separating us." 

"I wish you'd do some of your 'stunts' for 
Father," Lois suggested. 

"All right. If you want stunts, here is my 
best one." This was written briskly, upside 
down and backward from my position. "Dad, 
this is the way I wrote the letter to you and 
the girls. Here's another, with my love and 
greeting. I said I'd do this with trimmings. 
This is the beginning." 

We gave him fresh paper, and he wrote rapid- 
ly, in winding circles, starting at the edge of 
the table and finishing at the center: "Now I'll 
do it this way, all around the family circle. 
All of you in, and I am not left out." Diagonal- 
ly across the whole in bold script, "Frederick." 

In moving the paper again, it was torn a 

217 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

little. Mr. Gay lord made some suggestion as 
to the way it should be handled, and Lois 
humorously complained that he was "always 
interfering with other people's purposes." Be- 
ginning at the upper right-hand corner of the 
table, Frederick wrote along the edges, and 
then in circles toward the center, as indicated 
in the diagram: 




"Don't you mind, Dad. Let them laugh. 
You and I will be laughing at them presently, 
from all four points of the compass." Again 
his name was signed diagonally across the 
whole. 

"I always did like circuses, and I can be a 
four-ringed one now, all by myself, if I have 
a sympathetic audience," was his next achieve- 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

merit, done once more in circles from edges 
to center, but this time his name was signed 
in the center, in small script, surrounded by a 
flourish. 

When again a clear surface offered, he drew 
a large circle around the edge of the table — 
the symbolism of which, curiously, occurred 
to none of us until the next day — and then ran 
to the center, to circle toward the edge: 
"All of us together again, and all being happy 
in the consciousness that this is real and 
eternal union, and that from now on we are 
going to keep our family circle intact." 

Some one suggested that unquestionably he 
was keeping his promise to "do it with trim- 
mings," and in an intricate pattern, impossible 
to describe clearly, he replied: "Sure! I'm 
doing all the trimmings I can think of, and 
after a minute or two I'll think of more." 

By this time the astonishment and curiosity 
aroused by these performances had perceptibly 
lowered the emotional pressure, and the inter- 
view again proceeded more normally. 

Not unnaturally, in this first family reunion 
Frederick's messageswere chiefly personal. Fre- 
quently, in pauses, he made enthusiastic little 
circles, as has been his custom from the first, 
and I asked him whether it was the circle of 
infinity, all-inclusive. 

219 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

"Yes, partly. Put out all disturbing factors 
and all forces of disintegration, add more to 
eternity and infinity — and that is the circle." 

"Good night," he said, a little later. "I'll 
stay here to-night and as long as Margaret 
stays. You'll talk often, won't you?" 

The next night, he began with a suggestion 
that the rest do the talking, adding: "I'll 
listen and answer questions." After some dis- 
cussion of purpose, in its personal application, 
and inquiries concerning other members of 
the family on his plane, Mr. Wylie asked 
whether his grandfather could talk to him in 
this way. 

"I can get him, I think, by to-morrow," 
Frederick replied. "He's sheltering a lot of 
poor, undeveloped wretches who have come 
out of conditions not making for fitness or 
growth. He teaches, and urges, and offers 
them opportunity, and is too busy and helpful 
to come away often." 

After this had been written, I was told that 
this man, during his earthly life, had devoted 
time and money to providing opportunity for 
others; never offering charity, but building 
roads that the unemployed might have work, 
exchanging some commodity needed by a poor 
man for some other of which he had enough 
and to spare, and always encouraging his less 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

fortunate fellows to retain and develop their 
self-respect. 

Of another on his plane, now a healer, 
Frederick said: "I haven't seen him. Every 
healing force here, as with you, is occupied 
with war-stricken forces. They come so dazed, 
and sometimes terrified — and almost always 
startled, if they come from battle. And all our 
healing forces are required every minute." 

This reminded Mrs. Gaylord of an experi- 
ence of her own, a few days before, when her 
pencil had written detached words, suggestive 
of battle. "Lost . . . many lost . . . another 
dead . . . shot ..." etc. She asked whether 
this came from a friend, and was answered in 
the negative. To her inquiry, "Did you live 
here?" the reply was: "Near." She asked 
for the name, and it was written clearly, 

"K ." A few days later the name of 

Lieutenant K , of a neighboring city, 

headed the American casualty list. 

"K caught his one chance before his 

consciousness dimmed," Frederick commented. 
"He is now too bewildered to talk. Just after 
what people who don't know call death, there 
is a moment of singular clarity and vision. 
He happened to catch you in that moment." 

We fell to wondering, then, whether these 
messages could be flashed to us from a dis- 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

tance, or whether the person communicating 
must be present, and I asked Frederick whether 
he could send me a message from a distance. 

"No, but we travel in a flash." 

We who had had some experience in receiving 
these communications spoke of the fear we all 
had lest we might unconsciously influence the 
pencil, at times, to write our own imaginings. 

"You people have such a fear of imagining 
things that you shut out a lot we try to tell 
you," Frederick interpolated. "We can't get 
through doubt, bitterness, resentment, or self- 
ish grief. Fear can be conquered, but doubt 
shuts the door in our faces. Please relax a 
little of this too rigid vigilance, and at least 
entertain the idea we are trying to put over." 

"Do I shut things out by too much vigil- 
ance?" I asked. 

" You bet you do ! But you do it for the best 
of reasons. You can't take chances of giving 
the wrong message." 

To a question about the desire of others on 
his plane to communicate with those here, he 
replied: "They are all eager to get in touch, 
just now. Every one of us here is/ pulling 
every thread of connection he can there, be- 
cause this is a critical time and because never 
before in the world's history have so many 
people been reaching out for the thing that 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

means co-operation and progress, in the big- 
gest and broadest sense, if we can only reach 
them and convince them that we are all work- 
ing together, and that we here can help if 
they will let us." 

Mr. Wylie spoke of some one whose "make- 
up," he thought, might enable him to receive 
these communications. 

"Make-up has a lot to do with it," Frederick 
returned, "but the peculiar quality of follow- 
ing accurately a thought put forth by a force 
so subtle that science has failed to detect it is 
a thing that none of you recognize until it has 
demonstrated itself." 

Some one asked about a prominent politician, 
whom Frederick had known well in this life, 

and he replied: " is working his way back 

to a place in the forces of Production. He had 
a great opportunity, and used it for personal 
ends, and now he is learning how to use it 
for Progress. He is not destructive, nor even 
deterrent. He is a fine force, delayed a 
little." 

" Have you ever seen my mother and father?" 
Mr. Gaylord asked, thereby eliciting the most 
rapidly written communication — with the pos- 
sible exception of one coming the next night— 
that I have ever taken, the force moving the 
pencil being so strongly applied, at moments, 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

that the instrument was almost pulled out of 
my fingers. 

It should be explained that in this appeal 
to his father Frederick was addressing neither 
reluctance nor doubt, but a certain mental 
tensity, resulting from deep emotion, deeply 
repressed. 

"Yes, I had Grandmother at Mrs. Z 's 

one day," he began. "She is very anxious to 
talk to you, but she has gone on to a life, or 
a plane, beyond the one I am on, and I can't 
always reach her. I hope to get her some 
time before Margaret goes home. . . . She 
never wholly left you, any more than I have. 
She tried for years to tell you she was there, 
and she wants to come back as soon as pos- 
sible and tell you herself that there is no 
death, no separation, no cause for pain, or 
grief, or fear, or sadness of parting, except as 
it is made in the hearts of those who do not 
know the truth. 

"We are nearer to you than you are to each 
other, Dad, and we can prove it, if you will 
let go of yourselves and take hold of us. We 
want to come to you. We do come to you. 
We try and try to tell you that there is noth- 
ing to grieve about, nothing to dread. Only 
love, and hope, and growth, and beauty of 
completer union. But we can't do it alone. 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

We must have a free heart, a free mind, a free 
hope to come into. Give us that, and we will 
show you that we are more truly your own — 
not your own flesh and blood, but your own 
purpose and force, which was one in the be- 
ginning, and will inevitably be one in the end. 
We want to make it one now. Don't you, 
Dad? Won't you try to let the bars down and 
take us in? We'll come, and we'll all be hap- 
pier than you've ever been in all your life yet, 
because the Eternal Purpose is Unity, and we 
can begin it right here and now, if you there 
will join us and be part with us, as we with 
you, of the glorious and happy and (O) ir- 
resistible movement toward the great end— 
which, after all, is not an end, but an eternal 
and infinite growth toward bigger things. 

"It is a big gospel we are giving you, sir; 
a man's gospel; a gospel of hope and beauty 
and construction. And I am asking you to 
let me come in again to your every-day life, 
to let the dread and misgiving and unhappiness 
go, to think of us here — all of us who are yours 
— as still yours, still with you, still loving and 
working and hoping with you and for you; 
and if you can do that, I promise you we shall 
all be happier than any of us have ever been 
before. 

"You see, sir, we are all of the forces of 

225 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

Progress. We are all for Light, and Building, 
and Justice, and Truth, and when one of us 
holds back we are all held back. This is the 
first time it has been possible to tell you all 
this. This is the first time we have been able 
to reach you freely, in a way you could not 
mistake. But the people who have preached 
the gospel of happiness as a curative force have 
not been entirely wrong. They have not been 
wholly right. But the forces here cannot pos- 
sibly affect a tense and resisting mind as they 
can a relaxed and receptive one. And the 
forces here are potent and eager and ready. 
You know that must be true, because I am 
one of them, and the only change in me — 
absolutely the only one, Dad — is that I have 
left the limitations of the flesh behind and 
grown in perception and knowledge. I am the 
same Boy, 1 plus the better things, and minus 
the limitations. 

"Grandmother is the same, too — plus. She 
is sweeter, finer, broader, more loving, than 
when you knew her. Just as she was, but ex- 
panded, irradiated, deepened. That's all that 
death means, so you see it isn't death at all, 
nor separation, nor anything but beauty, and 

1 Later developments make it seem probable that this was an 
attempt to write the familiar diminutive for which his father 
afterward asked, and that my "too rigid vigilance" shut out the 
suggestion. 

226 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

greater love, and wider opportunity, and higher 
ideals to live to. 

"This is what we want to share with you. 
We can, now. You can have a little of our 
knowledge, while still in that preliminary life. 
You can help us and yourselves by realizing 
and living the purpose that is ours. You 
have always lived it, but you haven't always 
recognized it. Do that, recognize it, recognize 
us, let us in as recognized and essential parts 
of your life and hope and happiness, and I 
shall not need to tell you that this is a true 
gospel. You will have proved it for yourself. 
"Your son always, 

"Frederick." 

We were all deeply moved. After a little, 
Mr. Gaylord asked: "Is there anything more?" 

Frederick began making circles, and his 
mother said: "He's so happy!" 

"Happy isn't the word for it! I'm personi- 
fied radiance and bliss! There isn't anything 
more to-night, except my love to all of you, 
always — and to-morrow, and the next day, 
and all the days to come, we are reunited and 
indivisible. That's enough, isn't it, sir? Good 
night. Frederick." 



VIII 

The next day, that grandfather for^whom 
Mr. Wylie had asked came briefly, discussing 
purpose, like the rest. 

"I didn't half understand my own impulses 
there," he said, "but I know now that the 
best thing a man can do for other men — and 
for himself, too — is to give them a chance to 
develop whatever is in them. Sometimes it 
isn't much, from the point of view of the in- 
telligent man, but the fact remains that it is 
force, and the more quickly it is developed the 
more quickly the sum of the whole will be 
raised." 

He closed more personal assurances by say- 
ing: "There may be no way to put it into 
words, but you may be sure I am watching, 
and helping, and being helped, too, by your 
reaching toward our common purpose." 

When Frederick had taken over the pencil 
again, Mrs. Gaylord spoke of the long message 
to his father the night before, to which he 
replied: "It was only a beginning. This thing 

228 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

we have to tell you can't be given, nor yet 
accepted, in a day or a month. That letter 
last night was a sort of foreword, just to get 
us all started even. The proof of the pudding 
is coming later." 

Some more or less personal discussion fol- 
lowed, during which Mr. Gaylord asked whether 
certain arrangements he contemplated making 
were wise. 

Frederick replied that they were, as far as 
he could see, adding: "This is hardly a time 
for making permanent arrangements, for while 
the end of the war is certain, the economic 
conditions with you, following the war, are 
impossible now to foresee. We have no way 
of knowing how that struggle between labor 
and capital, power of foundation and power of 
development, will end. That is one of the 
reasons we are so eager to get all forces for 
true progress united now. There are thousands 
of laboring men misled. Get them in for our 
work. There are hundreds of employers ig- 
norant or indifferent. Turn them out." 

Mr. Gaylord, who had not at that time read 
the Lessons carefully, interpreted this as cham- 
pionship of the cause of labor as opposed to 
capital. Some one else suggested that every 
one, employer or laborer, who was not for 
united progress, should be "turned out." 
16 229 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

"Sure," Frederick answered. "Turn out 
the unions, as they work now. Get in unity, 
regardless of class." 

When Mrs. Gaylord inquired about a mem- 
ber of her own family, he replied: "He has 
gone on, and I haven't seen him. To some 
of us here there comes a lessening of interest 
in your life, and an intensified feeling of the 
importance of work beyond your plane. He 
has this interest, I hear, and very rarely comes 
back now. There is a lot I want to tell you 
some time about the differences and condi- 
tions of the many planes, but I can't do it now. 
The first work of those of us who have still 
close ties there is to give you all we can of 
the possibilities and meaning of the life you 
live. Some day I'll tell you what I can of the 
life ahead, which as yet I only aspire to." 

"I suppose there's no use asking whether 
you inhabit space, or planes, or stars?" Lois 
inquired. 

"There are things that I can tell you later 
about those matters of plane and future prog- 
ress," he said, "but there is so much that is 
more imperative now that I am told not to 
tell more, at present, than the immediate needs 
of your life require." 

"Do you feel any depression, when you 
realize the immensity of the universe and the 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

smallness of each individual?" was the next 
question. 

"That's a thing you've got to learn. There 
is no force that is not true force, and no atom 
so small that its weight doesn't count. If one 
atom is for destruction, that means two atoms 
lost to construction, the one that is against 
us and the one that balances it here, without 
any forward movement." 

"Have you seen my father?" Mr. Gaylord 
asked. 

"No. He is a healer now, and has come 
back from the plane beyond to help the newly 
arrived find their balance. I have tried to 
get in touch with him, but he is busy and I 
haven't yet met him, but still hope to. Few 
come back for any work here, and their greater 
knowledge makes them very much in demand, 
just as a great surgeon is with you in times 
like these." 

Again the talk turned into more personal 
channels, and Mr. Gaylord asked a specific 
question, affecting future arrangements. 

"... Your choice will be influenced, probably, 
by many considerations, as choice must always 
be in your life. ... I can influence you in ways 
I can't define in words, but I can't properly 
tell you how to choose — as you know better 
than I. You taught me that, and it's true. 

231 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

Every fellow on his own feet. . . . Not that I'm 
not eager to help, sir. You understand that, 
don't you? But the way I can help most is 
by a close and constant association and sug- 
gestion, that still stops short of definite ex- 
pression of choice for you. That is your 
privilege. Mine is to help you see the way 
more clearly." 

"Do you know what we are thinking, at 
all times?" 

" Not always. We read most of the thought 
of the sympathetic forces, and some of every- 
body's. I can't always answer the thought I 
read, though I can sometimes. But Margaret 
keeps up such a stiff guard, I can't always get 
over a thing she doesn't know is asked." 

I said I was sorry for that, and did not under- 
stand it, as I thought I had lowered all guards 
as far as he was concerned. 

"You can't understand all the barricades — 
and the limitations, too — of consciousness. 
Sometimes I sneak one through on you, but 
you are from Missouri, all right! You want to 
see the works before you admit the applicant." 

After dinner, we talked a little about the 
publication of these communications, and of 
the extent to which personal messages should 
be quoted. 

As soon as we gave him opportunity, Fred- 

232 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

erick said: "You people can't guess what it 
means to hear you talking about me, in the 
old, happy way. I've missed myself terribly, 
you know. . . . You've been talking about the 
book. If you'll permit a suggestion from me, 
the plan of copious quotation from all the 
interviews that have bearing on the big mes- 
sage, as well as some characteristic extracts 
from the more personal messages, under initials 
frankly substituted for real ones, is to my 
notion the way to do it. ... A good deal of 
what we have been allowed to say was be- 
cause this message was given through Mar- 
garet, and the rest of us have told things that 
illumine and carry on the message for the world. 
We have all wanted you of our own to know 
these things, but the channels through which 
this has come to her have been chosen for her 
fuller conviction, and to enable her to deliver 
this with greater force." 

In this connection, it is interesting to note 
that in every instance when messages of im- 
portance have come, it has been during in- 
tercourse primarily requested by those gone 
before, who have asked me to send for the per- 
son here through whose co-operation the freest 
communication could be established — Fred- 
erick writing more fluently to some member of 
his family than to me alone, Mary Kendal to 

233 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

Mansfield, David Bruce to his wife, and so 
on. Conversely, interviews arranged at the 
instigation of persons on our own plane have 
been generally without satisfactory result. 

"We who can tell it clearly, and whom she 
can absolutely identify," Frederick went on, 
"have had extraordinary fluency, and almost 
unlimited authority to speak. We have spoken 
to our own, and through them to all who will 
listen. Keep the personal part of all we have 
said as sacredly to yourselves as you like, but 
my own desire is that the parts of my messages 
that will carry conviction or comfort to people 
suffering in ignorance of all this may be given 
to them through you — as your faith and con- 
viction will lead you to do, I know — not in your 
name or mine, but in the spirit of light, healing, 
and progress we all serve." 

When this was construed as an intimation 
that he did not want his name used, he re- 
turned: "I have no slightest objection. I 
have only a feeling that this personal revela- 
tion belongs to you. Use it as you choose. 
I do not ask anything, except that you share 
its essence with those who suffer as you have 
suffered. Give them what will relieve them, 
and do it as you think best." 

At this point, the question of publication 
was dropped, though he returned to it the 

234 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

next day. A short pause followed. Then the 
touch on the pencil changed, Frederick's bolder 
writing being succeeded by a smoother, more 
flowing, and exceedingly rapid script, in a 
message to Mr. Gaylord from his mother, for 
whose early death he had never ceased to 
grieve. 

" dear, this is Mother. 

"Frederick told me I could reach you at last. 
I have had always the greatest desire to touch 
you, to tell you that your mother could not 
leave you, could not cease to love you, could 
not leave off watching over you, hoping for 
you, guarding your highest hopes and ideals. 
To have known the darkness that fell upon 
you, and to be unable to lighten it, or to 
soothe your anguish, made me as sad as one 
can be in this fine and everlastingly expanding 
life. I knew that you must some day come 
back to me, and into full knowledge of all that 
eternal life means, so I could bear it. 

"You have been always a joy and a source 
of great happiness to me, in your splendid 
adherence to the things we know now to be 
the first and fundamental principles of life. 
We did not know, when I was with you, all 
the wonders and beauties of the eternal life 
we talked about. We thought heaven was 
quite different from this. But it is heaven, 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

in a much higher and finer way than any- 
thing we dreamed of then, and to be able to 
come back to you now — to my boy, through 
his boy — and tell you all this, is almost as 
wonderful and blessed to me as it is to you. 

"I have gone on to a life and a work I can- 
not easily explain to you now. I have lost 
touch with the material things of your life. 
But you, your purpose, your achievement of 
force, the love you have never ceased to give 
me, the love with which you bless and are 
blessed by your family — all these things I know, 
dear, and have always known. 

"For so long, I tried to tell you not to grieve. 
We have been so close together, in the ways 
that are real and infinite. Never grieve again, 
dear son, for any loved one coming to this 
happy life. We do not leave you. We do 
not part in any way, except the way of flesh. 
We are happy, but can be so much happier if 
you know us with you and of you, and if you 
can come to us in confidence and love and 
conviction of our life, as we never cease to go 
to you. 

"Your father wanted me to tell you this is 
from him as well as from me. He is doing 
a great work and cannot come to you now, but 
he knew that I should soon come to say this, 
and he wants you to know that he, too, is 

236 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

happier in your growing knowledge of our un- 
ceasing life, and unceasing love, and unceasing 
upward growth. 

"Your family are all dear to us as part of 
you, and therefore part of us. It is a light 
increasing the light in which we dwell, to be 
at last in this close communion with you. I 
will come again some time — many times — and 
I want you always to think of me as loving 
you, keeping watch over you, and living in 
you and yours. 

"Frederick is splendid. You know that. 
Please be as sure that I am — and your father, 
too — always so full of happiness in the thought 
and knowledge of you and your love. 
Your loving 

Mother." 



IX 



"I am with all of you as I never could be 
before," Frederick said, the next day, "be- 
cause until we are realized and recognized the 
communion can't be complete. Now I can tell 
all of you lots of things you can get with- 
out words or messenger. Sometimes you will 
know they are my suggestions, sometimes you 
won't. But the fact that I am closely and in- 
timately in touch with you is the important 
thing for all of us. The recognition of my def- 
inite suggestion will come later, when you are 
more accustomed to all this and have learned 
the little signals by which I identify myself 
to you." 

"Can you tell us what those signals are?" 
some one asked. 

"They are like the force I am, too subtle for 
scientific analysis or description, but you'll know 
them, all of you. This thing can't be developed 
in a minute, you know. Wait, and watch, and 
let the bars down, and you'll know me when I 
come, in a comparatively short time." 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

"Can you tip tables with us?" Lois inquired. 

"Yes, probably; but that's a clumsy way 
of doing it. Some of you can run a planchette. 
None of you are likely to get anything like 
this. . . . This fluency of reception is hardly to 
be expected. We can talk, however. . . . You 
can always get me, for the essential inter- 
course, and somehow we'll get it across." 

"I want you to give your father something 
like the 'stop — look — listen' reminder to me," 
his mother said. 

"All right; but I can't do it in cold blood. 
Let me cogitate, and I'll try to think up a 
password that can't fail to accomplish the 
desired effect. You and Dad are the same 
purpose in essentials, but your force is dif- 
ferently applied and can't be approached in 
the same way." 

"How far down in the scale does the pos- 
session of a soul go?" Mr. Wylie asked, pres- 
ently. "How about animals?" 

"There is no such thing as soul, in that sense. 
AH purpose is force. All force personified is 
individuality. All individuality is eternal. The 
development is unequal. The undeveloped 
force finds quicker development here. But the 
force that Ji as be en o^eveloped to >_a point of 
intelligence ^ in your life, land is not actively 
put to work, goes^down in the scale, is deter- 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

rent, and has to work just as hard to get back 
as the force that never has developed at all." 

" Where does the force animating babies 
come from?" I asked. "What was little Dick 
before he was little Dick?" 

"That's what I want to explain, if I can. 
The force that manifests itself in animals is 
a grade higher in force than the vegetable 
manifestation, and that higher than inanimate 
stone and metal. The force of an animal comes 
here, to swell the forces that become individual 
and human through birth, but individuality 
begins with human consciousness. All force 
that is not human may eventually become 
human, but there is no persistence of indi- 
viduality until birth as a human and more or 
less productive force begins it. Animals do 
not produce anything but their kind. Only 
man creates, and that is the eternal attribute." 

"Is there a struggle between purposes to 
enter a new-born human?" 

"Many purposes are latent in every human 
being from birth. None is in absolute pos- 
session. Life on your plane is one perpetual 
struggle between the eternal warring purposes. 
No newly born child has chosen. The train- 
ing of a child should, from the first, be a prep- 
aration for battle, for daily — almost hourly — 
choice. Diligence, vigilance, purpose to work 

240 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

unceasingly and against all disintegrating in- 
fluences, determination to construct and to 
progress in spite of anything, mental, moral, 
physical, or material — these are the essential 
things in training a child to live forcefully and 
eternally." 

"What becomes of babies who die at birth?'* 

"They have undeveloped personalities and 
are developed here. We have strong forces of 
Light and Truth devoted to their teaching." 

"When a man is consciously determined to 
construct, is he ever overcome by disintegrat- 
ing forces?" 

"Sure thing he is, if he doesn't fight. Some- 
times he sways and recovers. R ead the Les - 
sons^ They'll tell you more every time you 
read them. They come from General Head- 
quarters. . . . The arousing force of this mes- 
sage is to be measured by conviction mani- 
fested in action. Again you are respectfully 
referred to the Lessons." 

"It doesn't seem fair that physical and 
nervous conditions should affect one's ability 
to resist or receive the forces," Lois mentioned. 

"It doesn't. You just think it does. The 
forces of construction are always eager to 
come in. The thing you call nervous exhaus- 
tion generally comes from yielding to forces 
of disintegration. A person yields to one or 

241 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

more of them, and then is sorry for himself 
because some doctor doesn't rout them. What 
he needs is to buck up and kick them out him- 
self." Evidently he referred here to the ner- 
vous disorders arising from mental disturbances, 
for the next day he emphasized the government 
of physical forces by physical laws. 

It was suggested that while many nervous 
disorders might be controlled in their incipiency 
by the person suffering from them, they event- 
ually get beyond his control, and Frederick 
replied: "You think so; but there's always 
force where there's personality, and if it can 
just be put up to you, by yourself or another, 
that the choice in the end is yours and nobody's 
else, you can help yourself. In the end, you 
help yourself, anyhow, unless you slide back 
to protoplasm of purpose. Get busy and buck 
up, or backslide and slump. It's up to every 
fellow for himself, and every one who slips 
b ack|jmpedes)the way for som ebodyjelse." 

In the talk following this, some one spoke 
of the constant teaching of brotherhood and 
regard for one's neighbor as a^icarious] gospel. 

"Not vicarious," Frederick corrected. "It 
is not vicarious to give the other fellow a chance. 
No man is his brother's keeper. No man has 
a right to impede construction, unless he's 
destructive. But it's every personality de- 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

veloped to its highest that makes the strong 
constructive army. The weak should have a 
chance to develop, but no strong force should 
yield its purpose. Nothing vicarious about 
that. Just common sense and good organiza- 
tion." 

Mr. Gaylord — the successful head of a large 
manufacturing concern — asked, with a twinkle: 
"Can you successfully run a business in ac- 
cordance with the principles laid down in these 
Lessons? Before you answer, I want to say 
that I believe it can be done." 

"You're right, Dad. It can't be done easily, 
nor quite consistently, at present, because of 
the complexity of modern business conditions. 
You are all bound to some extent by associa- 
tion with some one else, whether by a man, a 
directors' board, an association, or a contrib- 
uting concern. These all limit, to a certain 
extent, your freedom of action; but funda- 
mentally the principle is practicable, and can 
gradually be put into consistent practice by 
Omiting _with those of your own purpose? in- 
stead of with those who seem^expedient.l' 

That evening, Mrs. Wylie said that the re- 
peated assertions of invisible forces of con- 
struction and of destruction, alertly striving 
to influence us, reminded her of the old theories 
of guardian angels and possessing devils. 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

I think it was that night, too, though I 
made no record of it at the time, that Mr. 
Gaylord said, when Frederick's good night had 
been followed by his customary signature: "I 
wish he'd sign the name I used to call him 
by." Efforts to obtain it then, however, were 
unsuccessful. 

The next day — the last of my visit — Fred- 
erick said of a man of whom we had been 
talking: "He hasn't just found himself yet, 
but he will. He likes to produce some things, 
and he will respond to the higher call to build 
for the higher end. You can all help him, 
and yourselves, and our whole purpose, by 
calling to the latent builder in him. He wants 
to come in, but doesn't know just where to 
start. . . . More effort, more concentration, 
more force applied for purpose, is the thing to 
strive for first. I can't tell him how to build. 
That's for him to choose. . . . You can build 
together. Each of you helping the other, each 
of you bringing effort, willingness, perception, 
force of various kinds. But first and foremost, 
devotion to the purpose of progress, regardless 
of intervening difficulties and discouragements. 
Habit is strong in every human force. Re- 
member that, and watch — watch for the little 
masquerading devils of destruction. They are 
clever and subtle, and come in plausible guise. 

244 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

Kick them out and work. . . . You said this 
sounded like the old stories of possession by 
devils, Sis. It's not that. The devils of old 
possessed a man in spite of himself. The 
forces of destruction govern him only when 
he permits them to. He can always be con- 
structive, if he will. He may do no more than 
carry bricks to the mason, but still he builds. 
The man who has great opportunity must use 
it greatly. The little chap can use only the 
force he has. Thus endeth this preachment." 

Lois asked whether he had been present at 
a moment when several members of the family 
had been in^great physical dangerj and he re- 
plied that he had come at once, from a great 
distance, in response to a summons from a 
force "that is always with you when I am 
not." 

"There is always a connecting force between 
you and the free forces here," he explained. 
"We are always in touch that way. That is 
equally true of the forces for destruction. The 
greater forces for good or evil can be instantly 
summoned to reinforce your choice." 

This led to a discussion of prayer, in which 
certain members of our group had lost faith. 

"You can always summon help, if you call 
the (0) (eternal constructive forces j to build 
with you," he told us. "But most people 

17 245 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

pray for physical or material aid. Physical 
forces follow physical laws. Forces of eternity 
affect them to some extent, but do not govern 
them. Prayer with other people is a sort of 
lying down on the Infinite and giving up per- 
sonal effort. (The prayerlthat is most truly 
and promptly answered is the one that begins 
and ends with a determination not to yield 
to weakness, or fear, or the other disintegrat- 
ing powers. ^Prayer implies an open mind, and 
is too often made with a closed one. Not wil- 
fully closed, but fearfully, and therefore not 
truly open." 

"Physical forces, Mother, were too much 
for my physical resistance," he said, when she 
spoke of her effort to hold him here. "No 
amount of prayer, or influence of the forces of 
eternal progress, could affect that, beyond the 
extent to which it was affected. That is the 
reason it was a long fight. The forces helped 
all they could. But the physical thing is a 
minor thing, after all. The eternal thing is 
all that really counts. And to be able to put 
you, whom I love so much, in touch with the 
eternal while still in that preliminary life, is 
worth all that I — and you — went through to 
make it possible. To be able to pass on this 
knowledge to that life of yours is worth any- 
thing." 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

"Isn't the time coming when we shall be 
able to control our physical condition better 
than we do now?" Mrs. Wylie asked. 

"Yes, the mind — and what we call force in 
the eternal sense — has great influence over 
personal physical force. Kit performs no mir- 
acles, but prevents much yielding to what is 
really the forces of destruction, trying to ham- 
per and delay accomplishment of any con- 
structive kind. . . . The forces of disintegration 
are the busy boys, and it takes force and pur- 
pose and struggle to keep them out." 

"Is our decision to use your first name in 
the book right?" his father asked. 

"Yes, sir. I am very happy about that. It 
will identify me, and therefore the message, 
to many people I should like to reach personally, 
and will not identify you to the public at 
large. I should not like to have Mother and 
the girls annoyed by publicity, but that was 
for you to choose. The message, as you know, 
is important and general. But to a lot of 
fellows I want to reach, Frederick will carry 
where Z. X. would fail to convince. . . . Your 
attitude about the book pleases me, too. . . . 
You and I both know the force of the primi- 
tive masculine feeling that a man's family is 
his own, and its affairs private and personal. 
This time, the personal affair is also the eter- 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

nal affair, vital and illuminating. And the fact 
that I have been one of the channels through 
which this came, that it was the search for me 
that made Margaret begin this work, must not 
be confused in anybody's mind with the fact 
that the message is more than a message — it 
is a revelation. For that reason, you and I 
both will gladly sink the personal reluctance 
and remember the purpose we serve." 

A long pause ensued, while we sat soberly 
about the table, waiting. Then some one 
suggested that perhaps he wished us to ask 
questions. 

"All I want is to talk like folks to the 
family," he announced, with a force and rapid- 
ity amounting to emphasis. "For the love of 
Mike, stop thinking of me as different, and 
translated, and serious, and solemn! I_ da 
preacha-Jo L I a dmit. That's for reasons you 
know. But I'm just as fond of a joke as I 
ever w as, and I ref use _loJbe_ set aside as a 
superior being! \ Come on, now, count me in 
as the Boy, and out as a thing to be treated 
with solemn reverence! I'm myself, and I 
want it recognized!" 

After this, the talk drifted, much as it might 
have done had he returned visibly after a 
long absence, touching here and there. 

Presently Lois asked, referring to a friend 

248 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

in Europe: "Did you know H was mar- 
ried? And to an American woman?" 

"No, I didn't know that. He should marry 
a [free force,} like. an.. American girl. He was 
too blamed medieval in his feeling about fe- 
males. We are all a bit inclined that way, we 
men, but American women are doing a lot to 
free force, the world over. They are more 
nearly free in purpose than any other women 
in the world, more truly individuals — when 
they don't abuse it, and turn into dolls. 
American girls help women everywhere. They 

don't stand for any harem stunts. H will 

learn a lot of things he needs to know, if she's 
the real thing." 

Concluding a long reply to a personal ques- 
tion of his father's, he said: "Know that I 
am enjoying every pleasure you take, doubly, 
once for you and twice for myself. There's 
your watchword, Dad! One for myself, and 
two for the Boy. Remember that every time 
you are worried, every time you are tempted 
to overwork, every time you put off physical 
repairs, every time you feel depressed, every 
time you need rest and relaxation and pleas- 
ure, every time you play with Mother and the 
girls, every time you renew your fellowship 
with other men — always remember: One for 
myself, and two for the Boy." 

249 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

That evening, Mrs. Gaylord said that she 
had received a message about a relative in 
the West, purporting to come from her brother 
on the next plane, which she thought was not 
true, but one of her daughters told her that a 
letter received the night before had verified it. 

"Mother dearest, all messengers have that 
trouble," Frederick warned her. "There are 
certain things concerning details of your plane, 
that will come to you through forces around 
you, that get confused in transmission. 
That's as near as I can come now to explain- 
ing what happens. Some day, I can perhaps 
tell you more about it. But don't let that dis- 
turb or discourage you. The explanation is as 
natural as a deflected ray of light, or an elec- 
tric current grounded. 1 It is a part of the 
conditions under which we work with your 
plane, and is never encountered regularly or 
continuously. Certain detached experiences 
of that sort come to every messenger. This 
one you mention was not one of them, but I 
tell you this now, because the experience may 
come to any of you, including Margaret, any 
day. The current gets mixed. That's the 
best way I can express it. But it doesn't per- 
sist for any length of time." 

We talked about the force moving the 

1 Short-circuited? 
250 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

pencil. Mr. Gaylord asked whether I wrote 
the words, after receiving the message through 
my mind, and I replied that the force, on the 
contrary, seemed to be applied to the pencil 
from without — sometimes above my fingers, 
sometimes below them — my only participation 
being to hold the pencil upright and to follow 
its movement. Mrs. Wylle mentioned the 
theory that the message comes through the 
subconscious mind, the muscles of the hand 
supplying the motive power. We asked Fred- 
erick whether he could tell us anything about it. 

"The subconscious mind is like the battery," 
he said, slowly, "but the connection is made 
through the hand. The motive power for the 
pencil does not come, as scientists claim, from 
the subconscious mind, but from the subtle 
force I mentioned, put into connection with 
the hand by certain sympathetic and sensitive 
conditions of the subconscious mind. The 
comparison is not exact. The force is not 
electric, and has certain definitely distinctive 
qualities not to be expressed in any terms 
now familiar to your plane; but in time words 
will be found — or coined — to express this con- 
nection." 

Some weeks afterward, Mr. Kendal ob- 
tained a little additional information about 
this unknown force from his wife. 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

In endeavoring to establish communication 
with Frederick, through a pencil, one of his 
sisters had been overwhelmed by insistent, and 
frequently unknown, personalities seeking ex- 
pression, and had had some rather violent and 
annoying manifestations of the force they 
employ. 

"You mustn't do too much of this writing 
stunt," Frederick now advised her, "unless you 
give up a lot of other things. You can't burn 
your candle of force at both ends. Margaret 
gave up a lot of outside activities long ago. 
You are sensitive, and could do this in time 
very freely, but the receptivity is decidedly a 
strain upon the messenger at best, and if any 
amount of writing is to be done, you can't 
do other things, too." After mentioning that 
she would probably be beset by "any number 
of yearning forces," he added: "So either say 
'not at home' to anybody but Uncle J— and 
Bud . . ." 

I halted the pencil, supposing that he had 
intended to write either Boy or Brother, and 
that there had been a mistake in transmission. 

Lois glanced at the sheet, and ejaculated: 
"Buddie!" 

"That's the name I've been waiting for!" 
her father exclaimed. 

The pencil then went on, completing the 

252 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

name as if no interruption had occurred: 
". . . die, or give up other things, or quit." 

Afterward, when it had been explained that 
certain members of the family had called 
Frederick Buddie, Bud, or Buzz, variations 
of Lois's baby attempts at Brother, he added: 
"I've been trying to get that through, but 
the Missourian held me to known names." 

At first, names came to me with little diffi- 
culty, but latterly — possibly beginning with 
the Annie Manning episode — I have been gen- 
erally unable to transmit them. Some one 
asked Frederick the reason for this. 

"Because names are specific," he said. 
"She knows my name. She knew I had a 
special name, besides. But while an idea ex- 
pressed in familiar words can be transmitted, 
however unfamiliar the idea, the definite and 
specific spelling of an unfamiliar name is very 
difficult to get through, especially if the mes- 
senger is a little nervous about it, or constantly 
alert for possible mistakes. We can some- 
times get it through, as I did this, in a rush of 
other stuff." 

[A few days later, when I was very tired, 
receiving with difficulty, and therefore ques- 
tioning every statement made through the 
pencil, Mary K. said: "You are the most men- 
tally . . . el . . . elas . . . el . . . elastic is not 

253 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

the word. Means elastic and masterful . . . 
impregnable messenger I ever tried to work 
through. . . . That is the reason names are al- 
most impossible to send through you. You 
try to get them, but the almost invincible 
character of your mental resistance to decep- 
tion makes it difficult for us to penetrate where 
a doubt exists in your mind. A name is spe- 
cific to the highest degree, and resistance, how- 
ever unconscious and unrecognized, prevents 
its free transmission. "J 

"You will come again, won't you?" Fred- 
erick asked, as the hour of my departure ap- 
proached. "I have had a bully time talking 
to the family, and I can do better work now, 
because they are all happier, and all with me 
in conscious purpose. It's true that every 
bit of conscious co-operation with us helps 
us, as well as you. So that 'One for myself 
and two for the Boy' is not bunk, Dad. It's 
the real thing, for both of us." 

With a final brief message to every member 
of the group, the last of these L— — inter- 
views closed. 1 

1 In describing Frederick's pyrotechnical "upside-down stunts" and 
the later "trimmings," the great facility with which they were exe- 
cuted should have been more strongly emphasized. They were all 
written with extraordinary rapidity and firmness. 



The experience at L , while stimulat- 
ing, was also fatiguing, and for several days 
thereafter I was tired and dull, receiving with 
difficulty the few communications that were 
attempted. 

Tuesday evening, April 23d, two of Anne 
Lowe's friends wished to talk to her, but were 
told that she was busy and could not come. 
Mary K. answered some of their questions, 
concluding: "Anne sends love to you both, 
and says please come again soon. She is sorry 
she can't come now." 

After giving me the twelfth Lesson, Mary K. 
had said: "That is the last formal lesson. The 
rest will be given in other ways." 

"You mean through interviews and personal 
messages?" 

"Not entirely. You will be given signed 
letters, by great forces." 

Afterward, she mentioned these prospective 
communications sometimes as "letters," some- 
times as "talks," but Mary Kendal told us, 

255 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

May 13th, that this intention had been tem- 
porarily abandoned, as sufficient material for 
the book had already been given. Evidently 
this decision had been reached only recently, 
however, for an attempt to give me the first 
letter was frustrated on the 25th of April, and 
a second period of confusion and partial con- 
trol by invading forces ensued. 

During the morning, Mary K. prepared me 
for this letter, in a communication written 
quickly and easily, as follows: 

"Men will ask the theory of the letters that 
are coming to them through you. This must 
be explained. 

"As the Lessons nave been given to me to 
deliver to the world through you, so the letters 
that are to come will be given to me by the 
forces from whom they come. The reason 
that they come through me is that I reach 
you more freely, when you are alone, than any 
other force known to you and therefore com- 
manding your confidence. . . . 

"The Lessons came from great forces com- 
bined. They represent unity of all purposes, 
and were framed by the co-operation and agree- 
ment of the greatest forces of each construc- 
tive purpose, to reach the consciousness of men 
in general terms of your plane. 

"The reason that these forces do not come 

256 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

to you personally is that not all of them can 
reach you as freely as I do. Your simile of 
wireless telegraphy is a good one. It does not 
fully explain the connection between you and 
me, but is as good an explanation as the prog- 
ress of physical science enables you on that 
plane to follow. The full explanation will in- 
evitably be possible, as physical scientists are 
already beginning to work toward it. 

"You and I may be regarded as the receiving 
and sending instruments through which forces 
here transmit their messages. You receive 
from many other instruments, I send through 
others. But for impersonal messages you and 
I are most completely in accord, and thus 
it is that these greater forces use us as a means 
of communication. The first letter is ready 
now." 

It chanced, unfortunately, that I was called 
away, and when I was prepared to take the 
letter, later in the day, almost two hours were 
consumed in an attempt to write the name 
of its author, who was described as "a leading 
educator." Eventually I was assured that 
"Matthew Alden" was correct, but, while the 
name was repeatedly written, I had a strong 
impression that it was not what Mary K. had 
intended to write. Reminding myself of pre- 
vious difficulties in obtaining names, I tried to 

257 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

believe that the delay and fatigue incident to 
this effort had contributed to my doubt of its 
authenticity. But the doubt remained. 

The long letter which followed was also re- 
ceived with great difficulty and many delays, 
and proved, when completed, to be a verbose 
jumble of platitudes concerning educational 
methods, with here and there a striking phrase. 
It was signed, "Matthew Al. . . ." By this 
time, I was excessively tired and could obtain 
but one statement from Mary K. "You have 
not the name right." 

Later in the evening, I took up a pencil, 
and it wrote: "Mar . . . Matthew Aid. . . ." 
The name was not finished. 

"Isn't Mary K here?" 

"No. No, she will return." 

"She said she would be with me through 
this work." 

"She will again. Mary K. . . ." Illegible 
lines followed. 

"Is this Mary K. now?" 

"No. Mary K has gone. This is Mar. . 
Again the reply trailed off indeterminately. 

"Mary Kendal?" 

"No. Mary K. has gone. Matthew." 

Eventually, failing to elicit any response 
from Mary K., I asked whether Matthew had 
anything to say to me, and he replied with 

258 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

vague phrases, so reminiscent of the "letter" 
that I impatiently gave up the attempt for 
the day. 

The next day, Friday, Matthew's signature 
was the only one obtainable, but I have no 
record of any messages. I think I refused to 
take them from him. Saturday morning, I 
tried again. 

"Matthew aid. . . ." 

"I want Mary K. Why isn't she here?" 

"Mary K. will be vet . . . eternally with you." 

"Then isn't she here now?" 

"No, she was called away. She will come 
back soon." 

"Was that letter from the 'educator' yours?" 

"No, I am not a force for light. I am for 
truth and healing." 

"Did you deliver it to me?" 

"No." 

"Then why was your name given before it?" 

"Mary K. te . . . taken . . . ^eid . . . keek . . . 
tried to tell you I was here and would guard 
you. She will return soon." 

"Do you know about the letter? Did she 
give it to me?" 

"Not all of it. She will explain. I am just 
Mary K.'s *att .-.. *e ....**.* . feied . . . 
trained substitute." 

Asked how he could be her substitute, when 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

admittedly not of her purpose, he said: "Heal- 
ing is her purpose and mine, and truth the 
best guard." 

At this time, the Farrow mystery was still 
unsolved. Not until after this second pro- 
longed experience was I given any explana- 
tion of these attacks by opposing forces, or of 
the conditions governing such struggles, and 
while I was less disquieted than upon the 
first occasion, I was still puzzled and uneasy, 
strongly suspecting interference of some kind. 

That afternoon, Mrs. Gaylord and one of 
her daughters, passing through the city, came 
in for a brief talk with Frederick, and while 
there was at first some interference, he was 
soon writing with his customary clarity and 
vigor. 

When his sister asked about a personality 
aggressively demanding utterance through her 
pencil, he said: "Not much! Don't give in 
to him. . . . Don't you let anybody you don't 
know tell you anything. It may be true and 
it may not, and it's not a game to play any 
more blindfolded than you have to be. You 
have to take a good deal on faith, at best. 
Identify anybody who comes, as far as pos- 
sible." 

"Can you tell me from whom that 'letter* 
came?" I asked. 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

"That letter got deteriorated in trans- 
mission. It short-circuited, so to speak, and 
was somewhat damaged. The next, we hope, 
will be better." 

After my friends' departure, I caught Mary 
K. briefly, when she told me the source of the 
letter she had tried to deliver, adding that it 
had been too much interrupted. " Other forces 
tried to intervene and dominated you tem- 
porarily," she said, after which the pencil 
wrote only "Ma . . . Ma . . . Ma . . ." some- 
times surrounding the letters with two re- 
versed circles. I suggested Maynard, but the 
answer was, "No ... Ma ... Ma .. . Matt . . ." 

"I am not a disintegrating force," was the 
reply to my accusation. "I am Mary K. . . ." 

"Mary K. back?" 

". . . no . . . her substitute. Mary K. will 
return soon." 

"Are you sure of that?" 

"Yes. Mary K. is here." This was fol- 
lowed by Mary K.'s characteristic and vigorous 
signature. "You should know me." 

"It seems easy for the others to masquer- 
ade," I mentioned. 

"Not to your touch," she returned, indicat- 
ing a means of identification that I had hesi- 
tated to trust. 

"Why do you leave me?" I demanded. 

18 261 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

"You know I have followed light, healing, 
and justice all my life," was her retort. "Why 
doubt me now? I leave you that . . . Ma . , . 
Ma . . . Ma . . ." 

By a curious coincidence, the names of sev- 
eral persons connected with these communi- 
cations begin with those two letters — Mary 
K, Mary Kendal, Mansfield, Maynard, Mar- 
garet — and I suggested each of them in turn, 
before it occurred to me that "M. A." signi- 
fied Matthew Alden, the usurper. 

That evening was spent with Anne Lowe 
and her friends — Anne in one of her whimsical 
moods, jesting most of the time, with oc- 
casional more serious moments. 

Speaking of a dog for whose death they had 
grieved, she said: "He came, and grew into 
a better force, and some day he'll make an 
adorable baby. Part of him, anyway. He was 
almost human. Every force goes on to a higher 
one — unless it slides back. In the end it's got 
to go on, so why fret and fume about a step 
either way? Whichever way it is, it's one step 
nearer the end, and the end is inevitable and fine. 
If people must have coasting, let them coast. 
They'll begin climbing that much sooner." 

"Matt . . ." was written once, but with one 
voice we refused to talk to him. Mary K. 
followed, with a reference to a promise she had 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

made to Ruth, several weeks before. Then Anne 
again, with an apparently clear connection. 

Sunday, I was unable to get anything from 
Mary K. I was told she was away, doing my 
work. Monday morning, M. A. told me that 
Mary K. would be "through with the task 
soon," and wrote various phrases intended to 
be misleading. In my note-book, at this point, 
I find the following entry: "I am beginning 
to get M. A.'s messages a little more freely, 
but they are still slow and difficult." 

Upon the departure of a visitor, late in the 
afternoon, I was conscious of a strong sum- 
mons, and of a strange sense of turmoil and 
commotion. When I took up the pencil, the 
applied force was very strong at moments, 
then ceased utterly — sometimes sharply, in the 
middle of a word, or with a letter only half 
formed. Occasionally, the pencil was dragged 
down until it almost lay flat on the paper, and 
cancelations were frequent. 

"Matthew Alden is dcotructivo . . . Ma . . . 
M.A. . . . Matthew is destr. . . . des . . . de . . . 
disturbed about Mary K. She means to be 
the force de . . . to have . . . han . . . handle 
you, but she dootr . . . has not done . . . been 
heee . . . held to her purpose, and has departed 
to the other side of the world. She must be 
held firmly to her purpose." 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

Knowing Mary K.'s steadfastness in all 
things, I said that this was absurd. 

"She will be pnroucd . . . feett . . . forced to 
strong pleading to be allowed to do the rest 
of the letters. She should be having a follow- 
ing of our forces. She has been detained for 
a long time. Matthew Alden ... is having 
a battle. . . . Matthew has been defeated and 
. . . M.A Matthew is de . . . det . . ." 

Bewildered and irritated, I demanded: 
"What does this mean?" 

"Means that the powers . . . forces of de . . . 
construction are defeated. We have been 
beaten." 

"I don't believe that for a minute," I said. 
"Or do you mean the military forces? Is 
Germany winning a battle to-day?" 

"No, that is the least of it." 

"Are you trying to tell me that Germany 
will win?" 

"Yes, we are defeated. Her forces have 
reassembled, and have helped her slaughter 
ours." Again I said I did not believe it. 
"M.A. . . . Matthew is doing his best." 

"You said he was defeated." 

"He lost a fight." 

"If you are Mary K.'s substitute, why doesn't 
she come to the rescue?" I asked. 

"She didn't. She believes Matthew held 

264 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

out. . . . Message from Mary K. Margaret, 
I do. ... I do fight for you." I asked if Mary 
K. were writing. "No. Go to high forces 
for help. Only be forceful for us first. Mary 
K. will do her best for forces of light and 
progress. Matthew is better and danger is 
passing. MrA?" I demanded Mary K. "Not 
this time. All the forces have gathered. . . . 
She ohould . . . said be forceful." 

Saying that the whole thing seemed absurd, 
I asked whether it had to do with Germany 
and the war, or with the book and me — pro- 
vided it had to do with anything, which I be- 
gan to question. 

"It is the flandcr ... it is the battle . . . 
book, not the godec . . . god sent war." 

Amazed, I questioned: "Is God-sent war 
right?" 

After some delay — when one of the numerous 
blanks occurred, all force being withdrawn from 
the pencil — the impression of tumult instantly 
ceased, leaving a sense of sudden quiet and 
peace. Then— "Mary K. MaryK. Mary K." 

"That feels like Mary K," I said. 

"It means Mary K, too." 

"What did all that mean?" 

"Meant that the forces of disintegration 
have had control of you for days, at moments. 
Matthew was a force for fear." 

265 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

When I asked whether she had been away 
she wrote quickly: "No, not for one instant. 
He held me back, and called to your fear in 
accents of truth. . . . We have the forces all 
about us, and sometimes we are overpowered 
and compelled to let them through temporarily, 
but they can always be fought away in time." 

Brisk circles of affirmation followed my sug- 
gestion that possibly this explained the Far- 
row episode, and she made the statement pre- 
viously quoted: "We had a terrific struggle 
for you then. We told you the truth, but the 
other forces controlled the pencil." 

Weeks afterward, I asked her to explain 
more fully this dual control, and her reply 
seems to me singularly illuminating. 

"The connection with the pencil has no 
influence on your consciousness. We may con- 
trol the consciousness, through purpose and 
its unity, even though other forces control the 
material instrument." 

This seems not only to show why these 
messages are written sometimes with and 
sometimes without the messenger's previous 
knowledge of their content, but also to offer 
a possible explanation of phenomena of a much 
wider range. 

To my great surprise, Mary Kendal an- 
nounced herself a day or two after this, having 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

preceded Mansfield, she said, because I was 
"fairly beleaguered by the enemy" in an at- 
tempt to prevent the publication of the 
message. 

In spite of this reinforcement, however, M. 
A. persisted in attempts to engage my atten- 
tion. On one occasion, he invited me to "try 
a little change" and talk to him. On another, 
he asked me to let him write, as he had "a 
long story to tell" about my husband, who 
was out of town. Again, he assured me that 
I had disappointed "them," that "they" felt 
that I had failed as a messenger, and that 
Mary K. had departed permanently. Still 
again, when confusion seemed to have over- 
taken the book project, he declared, quite 
frankly: "We have stopped you now. M.A." 

No longer troubled by these intrusions, how- 
ever, I never permitted him to use the pencil 
after his identity had been discovered. Oc- 
casionally I was deceived for a moment, and 
not infrequently it was his failure to complete 
a sentence or a word that betrayed him. 

"He defeats himself by his fear, like all 
cowards," Mary K. said, one day, and when 
I mentioned that his messages lacked con- 
tinuity, she returned: "No coward is consecu- 
tive. How could he be?" 

These were by no means the last of the en- 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

counters with Matthew. Mr. Kendal arrived 
on the 7th of May, and a night or two later, 
when several of those interested in these com- 
munications were together, M. A. made his 
appearance again. For some time his initials 
followed every attempt to establish communi- 
cation with our invisible friends, but event- 
ually we obtained Mary Kendal's clear sig- 
nature, and a message, slowly written, with 
frequent pauses, during which the personality 
striving to oppose her was gradually overcome. 
M. A.'s erratic touch was ^occasionally evident, 
lessening in strength as Mary's steady, gentle 
control increased. 

"Come on," she said, finally. "We are 
ready for a little fun now, and we will leave the 
more serious matters until we have more truly 
a clear field." 

Accordingly, we abandoned our intended 
inquiry, for the moment, resorting to persi- 
flage, in which she took an active part, writing 
with increased fluency. 

>" Laughter is a constructive force, children," 
she told us, when things were going smoothly 
again. " Remember that when you fight fiends. 
... If we keep our touch close, and laugh like 
that, with real mirth, they can't get in." 

Later that evening, Anne Lowe came for 
a moment, just to tell us, she said, that we 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

had made a step in learning what laughter 
that is from the heart will do. "It is protec- 
tive, constructive, curative, and the devil for 
devils. They can't get over, or around, or 
through it. That's your best weapon and your 
best protection, aside from fundamental pur- 
poses. Use it, and more power to your — what 
is it you laugh with? Diaphragm, or what?" 

The next night, when conditions were normal 
from the first, we asked Mary Kendal about 
this incident, and she said: "It was just a 
massed attack, which will occur from time to 
time. They will fight as long as they exist, 
but the virulence and violence of their present 
efforts is due to our united attack on them." 

An interesting and illuminating variation of 
these occasional sorties occurred during an 
interview between a man of whose personal 
relations and interests I have only the most 
casual knowledge, and a personality on the 
next plane whom I knew not at all. 

The first messages to him, as to most of the 
others, concerned purpose and its unity. Ap- 
parently not convinced of the authenticity 
of their source, he repeatedly asked for an 
intimate, characteristic, personal message. 
Not receiving it, he asked a question relating 
to an entirely imaginary situation — "just to 
see," as he afterward explained. 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

The question was answered in detail, im- 
mediately followed by the statement, "Phil 
fears too much." 

Suspecting interference, from the peculiar 
movement of the pencil, I asked him who Phil 
was, and when he replied that he knew no 
such person, I demanded to know who was 
writing. 

"M.A." This signature was not complete, 
but the reply to a question in this connection, 
purporting to come from Mary K., was fol- 
lowed by a vigorous repetition of M. A.'s 
initials, inclosed in two reversed circles — his 
characteristic signature when in full control 
of the pencil. 

My visitor then admitted that he had asked 
a fictitious question, but attempts to learn who 
had answered it resulted in contradictory asser- 
tions from various sources, and knowing the 
difficulty of re-establishing a connection once 
effectually broken, I refused to continue the 
interview. 

"The integrity of the seeker," Mary K. said, 
the next day, "is the messenger's only protec- 
tion from disintegrating force during an in- 
terview. These forces should be persistently 
repelled, not invited. Ignorance of their pres- 
ence and power frequently opens a way for 
them, as in this instance. Absolute sincerity 

270 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

and candor are essential to the maintenance 
of a connection with constructive forces, in 
these interviews." 

"Forces of disintegration do not wait to be 
invited," she asserted, on another occasion. 
"They constantly attack, and seize the first 
opportunity to take possession. We, also, 
watch and call, and enter where we can. But 
the idea of original sin is so strongly implanted 
in the minds of most men, that an assumption 
that disintegrating force can only enter where 
it is invited is inevitable. It must be clearly 
understood that attack by forces of disinte- 
gration does not imply weakness, or fear, or 
sinful desire. It implies only a desire on the 
part of the attacking force to destroy. That 
there are individuals given to disintegration is 
another matter. Those most desirous of con- 
struction and progress are more often attacked 
by persistent, massed forces of destructive 
purpose. To be conscious of this is to be pro- 
tected, to some degree. For that reason, we 
urge the publication of these truths, that the 
struggle may no longer be waged in ignorance 
and doubt and confusion." 

"Does 'massed forces of destructive pur- 
pose' imply some combination, or co-operation, 
or co-ordination, among disintegrating forces?" 
Mary K. was asked, at another time. 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

" Yes, they combine every appealing force, 
as we do. One man may answer to doubt, 
fear, cupidity, and envy. Another to malice, 
doubt, and lust. Any forces that can reach him 
mass themselves in attack and call on their pur- 
poses in him to respond." 

"Then there must be a considerable degree 
of intelligence among them. You said they 
would become constructive when intelligent." 

"When intelligent enough. I never meant 
to imply that the purposes and forces of de- 
struction are unintelligent. They are not fully 
intelligent. They are not balanced, not fully 
animated. All forces of construction compre- 
hend destruction. No forces of destruction 
comprehend construction. They are intelligent 
and wily in destruction, but fail to apprehend 
its futility." 

"Are they what we on this plane call un- 
educated, unlearned, ignorant in that sense?" 

"They are sometimes found on your plane 
among the highly educated, learned, and power- 
ful. Here we regard them as undeveloped 
forces, to be fought unceasingly until they 
consent to become constructive." 

"You don't call that coercing your brother, 
do you?" I asked. 

"No, we do not compel them to construct, 
if they would destroy by preference. We op- 

272 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

pose them until they perceive that they must 
fail, and seek light. Then we accept them, 
instruct them, and are stronger. . . . The forces 
opposing us have no faith, hence no knowledge 
of a future.. x They dread destruction, fear the 
end of existence, deny a future, and constantly 
seek to destroy the inevitable." 

In this connection, Mr. Kendal once asked 
Mary: "What do the evil forces think they're 
trying to do? Have they lost the great pri- 
mary idea? Was there a great primary idea? 
Or are they just bandar-logging it around in 
a chaotic forest of spiritual upas-trees, scream- 
ing at anything they happen to see?" 

"There was no g reat primar y id ea of de- 
struction," she returned. "A lot of idle force 
gathered togeth er, and finding itself behind the 
procession in strength, radiance, and beauty, 
began envying and coveting and backbiting, 
and from that to destruction is a logical and 
inevitable progression. ( ; Why is anybody among 
you flenvious,\or (malicious] or (cowardly) or (de- 
structive?) There is no great idea behind it. 
Thex_see_they are behind somebody else in 
something, and instead of developing what 
constructive power th ey have of their own, _ 
thexSte jffie person who has more and try 
to_destroy him, or his reputation, or his prop- 
erty. There you have concrete examples of 

273 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

all the idea there is in destructive purpose. 
It's spiritual unintelligence." 

"Why did they quit Germany?" he asked, 
then. "Isn't the apotheosis of such personal 
and deterrent and soul-driving and dominating 
purposes just their caliber?" 

"They see the forces of progress gathering 
among you, and know that they cannot win 
through Germany. She still follows their 
methods, but without their help, while every 
vibration of progressive and co-opqrative pur- 
pose among you enables us to help you more. 
So they have left her to the fruits of their 
union, the consequence inevitable, and hatch 
fresh mischief themselves." 



XI 



On the evening of his arrival, May 7th, Mr. 
Kendal asked his wife whether she could stay 
with us during his visit to New York, and 
she replied that she would outstay him, unless 
the forces attacking me were defeated before 
his departure. 

"It really helps, then, for us to get together 
here," he inferred. 

"Yes, indeed, it helps. All combination of 
force adds by the sum of its participation to 
the original amount of force combined." 

Taken in conjunction with other, similar 
assertions in this connection — "Its force is freed 
and multiplied by the sum of your participa- 
tion"; "For every vibration of pure construc- 
tive purpose among the Allied forces, we have 
added two"; "Force united is more powerful 
by half than similar forces separately striving"; 
etc. — it seems probable that these expressions 
were intended as figures of speech, emphasizing 
the increased potency of united purpose on our 
plane and the ability of the free forces to rein- 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

force it in proportion to its actual vitality, 
rather than as mathematical statements of the 
exact degree to which this reinforcement and 
co-operation may be carried. 

Mentioning that sometimes they seemed to 
make a distinction between purpose and force, 
and again to use the terms interchangeably, 
Mr. Kendal said he would like to know the 
character of each. "Is purpose like the di- 
rection of an electric current, and force like 
amperage and voltage?" he asked. "Or is 
purpose the road, and force the velocity in fol- 
lowing it? Is purpose qualitative, and force 
quantitative? Is the distinction between them 
along some of these lines?" 

"It is along all those lines," was the reply. 
"Purpose is the force that draws. Force is the 
purpose that pushes." 

Like various others to whom these messages 
first came through me, Mr. Kendal had been 
trying, with some success, to obtain direct 
communication. Mary facetiously described 
his pencil as "a good burro," and mine as "a 
real hawse." I had thought this dialecticism 
differently spelled, but he reminded me that 
"hoss" belonged to New England, and 
"hawse" to Mary's native state, Kentucky. 

While the pencil-point rested idly on the 
paper, we talked about the sensations accom- 

276 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

panying its movement, and about the probable 
direction of the force propelling it. To him, 
the impulse seemed to come first and chiefly 
through the consciousness; to me, it seemed 
a physical force externally applied to the 
pencil, notwithstanding occasional conscious- 
ness of what the message would be; but we 
were agreed that it was difficult, at first, to 
be sure that the impulse was not in some un- 
recognized way our own. 

"It has been amusing to us to see you two 
struggle against our psychical intrusions," 
Mary remarked, at this point. "We do push 
the pencil. We also reach the mind. Some- 
times the one, sometimes the other, is what 
does the trick. It is easier for us to impress 
the mind, but harder for you to recognize that 
suggestion as ours. You think it's your own, 
and fight. Margaret is even more resistant 
than Manzie — perhaps because she has more 
responsibility to other people." 

"Are present conditions — the gathering of 
the clans for the coming struggle — going to 
enable many people to do this, who have never 
done it before and otherwise would have been 
unable to do it?" he asked. 

"Yes; but the danger of that is that the 
other forces will find their own channels, and 
steal and defile some of ours. So we can't 

19 277 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

advise people to experiment, unless they can 
absolutely identify the force here, and only a 
few, comparatively, can do that." 

He said that he had hesitated to ask ques- 
tions of his own pencil, being unwilling to go 
too far in this until he had checked it up 
through me. 

"He's scant," she teased, before he had fair- 
ly started to speak. "You don't trust your- 
self or me." 

Laughing, he retorted: "That's another!" 

"You are right to be careful," she went on, 
serious again. "It's a dangerous adventure, 
unless you keep your balance, follow your own 
purpose, keep close tab on the force handling 
the pencil, and lean on it only spiritually. The 
minute advice in material things is sought, 
that minute there is danger." 

"There's no danger that anybody can im- 
personate you and fool me," he declared. 

"Never! The danger is that somebody 
might lie to you about me; or if you cease to 
stand on your own feet and m ake ^your own 
choice in^ matters of jvour plane, only then 
somebody jnightjmpersonate me for a moment. 
Sometimes I can tell you those things, but the 
habit of depending on them is bad for you." 

A night or two. later, beginning with a reply 
to a question concerning another subject, she 

278 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

returned to the discussion of the force used 
in conveying these communications — "a force 
compared to which electricity is like spring 
water," she said — declaring, like Frederick, 
that its explanation is still impossible in terms 
of our plane. 

''There is a vital and potent force, not yet 
isolated — and hardly discovered — by your most 
advanced scientists," she told us. "It has 
characteristics and attractions not explainable 
until its discovery and analysis give rise to a 
new set of words. There is no adequate 
comparison that may be used to indicate its 
force, or the conditions and degrees of its 
variations. It has some resemblance to elec- 
tricity, yet the comparison in certain cases 
would be misleading." 

"I am talking about the force we use in 
moving this pencil, and to some extent in 
affecting your thought," she continued, when 
Mr. Kendal had mentioned certain recent 
scientific experiments of which he had read. 
"The scientists have long associated the power 
of thought with the brain, and have seriously 
argued that, as we could not be seen, measured, 
weighed, or condensed, we did not exist. We 
do. And we have a force at our command 
that cannot be explained, as yet. It can only 
occasionally be demonstrated as clearly as 

279 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

this. Electricity is the most likely to impress 
the man in the street as a comparison, but to 
argue from that as a premise would lead to 
misconception. At present, it must be ac- 
cepted as a recognized but not understood 
force, only dimly perceived, as for years 
electricity was." 

"Does it help, if we emphasize what we know 
of static electricity, as well as thinking of the 
comparison in terms of electric current? A 
static force in your plane, perhaps?" 

"Yes, that helps; but the static force is in 
your plane, quite as much as here. We have 
more knowledge of the current, to continue 
the simile, but encounter static conditions both 
here and there, as well as counter currents 
here." 

This would seem to offer reasons — in addi- 
tion to David Bruce's explanation of the diffi- 
culties of translation when the messenger's 
reaction to certain word-symbols fails — for oc- 
casional delays in the transmission of these 
communications . 

"Margaret hasn't tried us yet with an 
antagonistic force on your plane," she said, 
on another occasion. "We don't do it this 
way when the forces there are not harmonious." 

"Is your forward sight much greater than 
ours?" her husband asked. "Or is it, in rela- 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

tion to other planes, about what ours is in re- 
gard to yours?" 

"We can see the end as you have not even 
dreamed it yet, but our detailed knowledge is 
limited to two or three planes beyond ours. 
Even here, development is uneven, and some 
of us see farther than others. We are far from 
omniscient or omnipotent. We have advanced 
beyond you, our individual purposes are clear 
where yours are confused, we know where we 
are bound and why, we see much farther ahead 
than you can, and we work in three planes — 
yours as teachers, ours as laborers, and the 
next as students." 

Referring to the statements about Russia, 
of which we had told him, he asked whether 
there were the same relative differences of 
opinion and judgment among them as among 
us, as to psychological policies to be pursued 
for the Great Purpose, and as to the applica- 
tions of those policies on this plane. 

"There are some differences of perception. 
Light, for example, sees shadow and desires 
to dispel it. Truth sees error and wishes to 
correct it. But, broadly speaking, the opin- 
ions are the same. The impediments in the 
path of progress are many. Each purpose 
deals with its own; Light with darkness, 
Truth with error, and so on. Each may work 

281 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

in the same field, even in the same individual, 
but here we work for the same ultimate pur- 
pose. We do not disagree. Each follows his 
own work, and recognizes the other's field." 

"We have a united policy," she said, at an- 
other time, "but each our individual applica- 
tion of it in personal relations and messages 
like these. It is all intended to enlighten and 
inspire you, but only in certain fundamental 
and specific matters are we instructed what to 
say." 

"Can you determine time there, by other 
than the memory of it here and by close in- 
spection?" was another question. 

"We have no time here, in your sense. We 
watch you, and remember, but we lose track 
of you, sometimes." 

Mr. Kendal then said — explaining his phrase, 
"close inspection" — that he thought they saw 
time dimly, as we see through water or through 
fog. 

"Is memory with you as acute as answers to 
some of these questions seem to indicate?" one 
of us inquired. 

"Not of material things, generally. We 
don't pay much attention to them, unless they 
interfere with purpose. Just now they are 
interfering a good deal — or were, before the 
war, which is itself a material manifestation of 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

purpose." We said that we should have 
thought this interference in full force still, and 
she continued: "The real interference, from 
our point of view, came before the war, when 
the world outside of Germany was too much 
occupied in pursuit of material things to see 
what was happening. They failed even to 
see Germany's intention. Much less did they 
discover their own danger, of which Germany's 
purpose, materially, was the least. The war 
woke them up by degrees, fortunately, or there 
would be no use telling them this." 

A question concerning the possibility of 
communicating with a person recently departed 
from this plane, was met with the statement 
that he had "free communion" still to learn. 
This expression had been used several times 
by others, and now I asked: "Mary, what is 
free communion?" 

"You don't think we vocalize our talk, do 

you?" 

Mansfield suggested that when a man found 
himself suddenly without his material veil, he 
must be at a loss how to proceed, and asked 
whether that was what she meant. 

"Not entirely. The veil isn't missed par- 
ticularly, but there is a . . . a. . . ." 

"Difference of medium?" he asked. "Like 
a water-color artist who can't paint in oil?" 

2§3 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

"That's it." 

"Referring to your assertion in March that 
truth is absolute," he said, "is not truth itself 
relative on this plane? Truth as a statement of 
eternal law is absolute, but when applied to con- 
crete facts and ideas, it changes from time to 
time? That is, a concrete statement which 
expressed the relations of certain mundane 
conditions to the eternal verities in B.C. 1000, 
would not necessarily be a correct statement 
of the relations of corresponding conditions to 
those verities in the year 1900 a.d." 

"That is the idea on which this whole revela- 
tion is based," she returned. "These things 
have always been true. They would not have 
sounded true in the year one, any more than 
a lot of the 'truths' of that day are true now." 

A night or two after this, he said he would 
like more light on the practical application of 
these principles, especially those in relation to 
freedom. "How, for instance, would you go 
about helping a school?" he asked. "Take, as 

concrete examples, a University like , its 

Faculty held in subjection by hidebound 
trustees, and the proposed People's University, 
to be governed from day to day by [plebiscite 3 
or jref erendumj, with no jdefined policy for pro- 
cedure beyond a general idea of freedom. 
'You may lead a horse to water, but you can't 

284 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

make him drink.' Should the construction of 
the trough be left to chance, or should it be 
planned carefully? In other words, should 
mundane provision and prevision be employed 
in building it?" 

"It has been said already that men must 
firsLlearn to think, and to govern themselves, 
before, they can be free." It was Mary K. 
who answered. "If experience were not taken 
into consideration, progress would be impos- 
sible. Mundane prevision and provision is 
essential to all constructive activity on your 
plane. Opinions will differ as to ways and 
means of applying principles of progress. 
The first way to help a school is to es- 
tablish 'unity among the teachers. Not only 
unity of purpose, but a certain large unity of 
method^ that one may not tea r down w hat 
his brother builds. .^ Ideals of freedom have 
been confused by men reaenting_tlie_nrst law. 
niL-freedom — discipline. Lack of discipline, 
carried to its logical conclusion, would return 
the world to chaos. The school that is free 
in its teaching must be carried on by^isciplined 
t each ers, united in ajpurpose of progress clearly 
recognized and agreed upon, to^teach^ discipline 
that the minds of men may dare to be free." 

"The idea underlying that, I take it, is that 
as the athlete whose body is thoroughly trained 

285 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

and co-ordinated dares to jump an abyss, 
without fear of falling, so the man whose 
mind and spirit are disciplined can jump an 
intellectual abyss, without losing balance or 
sanity." 

"Yes. And as a man trained to carry great 
weights on his shoulders must be trained to it 
from youth, so the man who would carry gov- 
ernment and freedom of thought must train 
his mind to carry its weight — not alone to 
hold it briefly, but to carry it on." 

"Is it true, then," he asked, "that safe free- 
dom and constructive freedom are only pos- 
sible after prior discipline and self-control?" 

"How can {undisciplined freedom \be_saie or 
constructive? It makes the wilderness. It 
makes the jungle. It makes the uncharted 
and devouring sea." 



XII 



One day, about the middle of May, discuss- 
ing these manifestations over a luncheon table, 
a man who described himself as "a sympathetic 
[[agnostic "J mentioned that while all those on 
the next plane reported that they were busy, 
none to his knowledge had told just what they 
were doing. 

At that time, we had received several state- 
ments concerning their activities. Frederick 
had spoken of his efforts in connection with "a 
pro - German newspaper editor." Maynard 
Holt's mother had told us that she worked 
"with undeveloped purposes, here before their 
time." It had been said of a famous editor: 
"He is for Justice. . . . He is one of the forces 
determining the grouping of the newly ar- 
rived." Anne Lowe had said: "I handle chil- 
dren. Some of them thought they were grown 
up when they left you." And the work of the 
healers, in receiving and soothing "war-stricken 
forces," had been repeatedly mentioned. 

However, with the comment of the "sympa- 

287 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

thetic agnostic" in mind, we asked Mary Ken- 
dal, apropos of some allusion to the healers 
on her plane, whether she could tell us of their 
work in detail. 

"You have already seen that our ability to 
be specific, even about things here, is depend- 
ent on your ability to understand conditions 
of our plane,'* she reminded us. "As fast as 
we can, we give it to you. But as well explain 
the operation of wireless telegraphy to an il- 
literate * cracker,' as to try to explain healing, 
as we understand and practise it, to the person 
unprepared by thought and study of these 
truths." 

The next day, in another city, Frederick, 
writing through a member of his family, said 
that he had been doing some work in develop- 
ing some spirits who had "let their lowest ten- 
dencies be their guiding force." 

"They were men who were very unhappy, 
because they had left the world before they 
were ready, and did not know what this life 
meant," he said. 

"Had they recently gone over?" he was 
asked. 

"Yes, not very long on this side. They were 
so bewildered that they thought they were in 
some kind of dream that they could not wake 
from. They had been sick, but not long enough 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

to let them get any idea of death, or light after 
death, so they were sorry to come over." 

"Do they call you teacher?" 

"No, just a friend." 

Replying to a question about a specific ac- 
tivity on this plane, he said: "I can tell you 
that a lot of those things that seem bewildering 
are not important enough to be doing what we 
call work here." 

"What do you call work?" 

"Conscious development of spiritual forces." 

A month later, a question about a woman 
known here as a sculptor brought the following 
reply from David Bruce. 

"She is working with a development of the 
purpose of production, which is the foundation 
that underlay her work there. She is produc- 
ing force by developing the undeveloped 
producers." 

Probably the most specific information yet 
received by any of our small group concerning 
the practical application of these principles 
to the affairs of our plane, came through May- 
nard Holt. 

"My work lies principally with business men 
on your plane," he said, one day, to a family 
connection. "We are much concerned about 
the lack of co-operation among persons of con- 
structive tendencies, and my own job is to 

g§9 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

apply this force we cannot fully explain to 
you, in any way that will influence men or 
women toward co-operation. Sometimes we 
use it to suggest a new idea. Sometimes we 
use it to so direct apparently consequential 
circumstances and events that the person we 
wish to influence gets an object lesson." 

In support of this is a statement of his made 
in April. While writing a long message, most 
of which was intimately personal, he indicated 
his interest in business conditions, and urged 
a greater and more far-seeing co-operation 
among business men. In the midst of a sen- 
tence the pencil stopped, creating a long delay. 
Failing, after repeated efforts, to transmit the 
word he had attempted, he drew a series of 
singularly uniform arches across the whole 
width of the paper. 

After puzzling over it a moment, I drew a 
line above the arches, and said, perceiving no 
significance in the symbol: "That looks like 
a viaduct." 

"That's what I mean," he resumed, vigor- 
ously, and proceeded with an elaboration of his 
theme, comparing co-operation to a viaduct. 

"In the end, the forces for progress will 
cross to all lands by that viaduct," he con- 
tinued, "and those who balk and refuse it 
will be diverted and delayed by following old 

290 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

paths through the tortuous chasm of com- 
petitive destruction. Not that we discourage 
competition. The individual organization, like 
the individual man, must follow its purpose 
and develop its force, but . . . |competition at 
its best is entirely friendly and constructive. 
Boys have it taught them in the simplest form 
m college sports. , There it is personal, but 
co-operative in the development of college 
spirit. Each man does his best for himself 
and his own record, but loyally and cheerfully 
supports against opposing forces the more suc- 
cessful man who is of his own group. With 
increasing responsibilities, temptations and dif- 
ficulties increase, but experience should bring 
ability to meet them. The code of school and 
college forces may be developed and applied 
to business and productive forces. This is the 
first application of college training to com- 
petitive business." 

Afterward, when Mr. Kendal had expressed 
his cordial sympathy with the theory of co- 
operation, widely applied, Maynard said: 
"That's where the college team has won and 
the union has failed. The union was good in 
conception, but has made for the suppression 
of individual development, where the college 
team encourages it." 

Later still, following a conversation con- 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

cerning national economics and international 
commerce after the war, he said: 

"Co-operation is moral. Commercial su- 
premacy is material. Material success is con- 
structive only if permanent, and permanent 
only if constructive. Until co-operation for 
permanent progress becomes a principle of 
international as well as national purpose, there 
will be little actual progress toward perma- 
nent peace, or lasting prosperity. 

"As the college boy works first for his own 
power, but most for his team, and first, last 
and all the time for clean athletics, so the busi- 
ness man should work first for his unit, defi- 
nitely for his country's welfare, but first, last 
and always for clean co-operation with all who 
make for the world's progress. 

"The exponents of national supremacy at 
the expense of world progress are exactly in 
the position of the exponents of personal pros- 
perity at the expense of national welfare. The 
situations are analogous to a degree as yet 
comprehended by few men. 

"It took many years to convince the manu- 
facturer that increased production would fol- 
low shorter hours and improved working con- 
ditions. It took many years to convince 
merchants that decreased cost and increased 
profit followed combination of forces. It took 

292 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

some time to convince financiers and manu- 
facturers that success, not failure, would follow 
the co-operation of competing concerns in the 
foreign field. Yet it is now recognized that all 
these things are true and practicable. No less 
— even more — is it practicable to unite world 
forces of progress in commerce as they are 
united now in war, the fight at all times being 
for construction and development, against 
destruction and regression. 

"This cannot be done in a day or a year, 
but this is the goal toward which enlightened 
forces should move. It may sound Utopian 
now. So did model factories and tenements, 
a few years ago. Their advocates were scoffed 
at and discredited. Now, the manufacturer 
who fails to provide healthful working condi- 
tions for his operatives is called short-sighted 
and pig-headed, and cheats himself twice, 
while cheating his employees once. 

"Co-operation is the basic principle of all 
progress, and the point at which it stops is 
the measure of strength of man or nation. 
The nation that refuses to co-operate for prog- 
ress is a nation confessing itself deterrent." 

Again, in June, Maynard returned to this 
subject, saying that men must become "strong 
enough to let the other fellow live and prosperT 
without fearing him." After mentioning "fear 

20 293 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

of what may come, or lust for what may be 
seized," as motives making for destruction, he 
added: " Neither is constructive or progressive, 
and neither can win in the end." 

"We have purpose to progress beyond the 
vision of man," he went on, "but even ma- 
terial progress, to be constructive and per- 
manent, must be governed by a vision beyond 
the day. We are trying to extend that 
vision. 

"Co-operation in individual enterprise has 
succeeded. Co-operation in national enter- 
prise would succeed no less. More and more, 
men are recognizing the value of {united effort 
in commercial enterprise, however long it took 
the truth to dawn. Must other centuries pass, 
other wars be fought, other dynasties rise and 
fall, before the larger truth ushers in a new 
day? Will co-operation in business, co-opera- 
tion in war, teach them to study and practise 
co-operation in world welfare and progress? 
Will they learn that it is not only in war that 
a weakened Belgium means an endangered 
England, that a hungry France means short 
rations in America, that afaink weakenedlmeans 
the [chain^weak? 

"How many times must this premise be 
demonstrated before the argument is carried 
to its logical conclusion, and national co- 

294 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

operation, free and voluntary, provide for the 
good of one by protecting and developing 
all? 

"This is not a Utopian fantasy. It is com- 
mon sense." 



XIII 
f 

Talking about the Lessons one day, Mr. 
Kendal mentioned his impression that Zoroas- 
ter had said something approaching the first 
one in theory, and then asked, a whimsical gleam 
in his eye: "Mary, has Professor James said 
anything about Zoroaster in this connection?" 

"Manzie, Mr. James has no philosophical 
library here to refer to," was the prompt re- 
tort. She told us, however, that he would 
soon come himself to talk to this former pupil 
of his, adding a characteristic glint of humor 
in the assurance that he would then give "a 
demonstration of a philosopher simplified to a 
force." 

A night or two afterward (May 13th), she 
announced: "Manzie, here is Mr. James." 

There was a brief delay, and when the pencil 
moved again, it was with a changed application of 
force and a new movement, the first words being 
personal. Referring to an early period in his 
own investigation of psychic phenomena, he 
said : 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

"Youth, in its nearness to inspiration^ some- 
times sees more clearly than age, with its 
academic dependence upon theory and prec- 
edent and what men call the wisdom of ex- 
perience. When this wisdom is based on 
perception, conscious or otherwise, of eternal 
purpose, it transcends the vision of youth. 
But when it is based on perception of physical 
phenomena and the accumulated theories of 
other men, youth has an inspiration and a 
faith that leads it, all unknowing, to the brink 
of great mysteries." This was followed by an 
allusion to those "befogged in precedent, physi- 
cal phenomena, and intellectual theory," who 
were "unable to follow where they should have 
led." 

"There has seemed to be a good deal of 
genuine feeling underlying the humorous persi- 
flage through the pencil about the scientific 
state of mind," Mr. Kendal suggested. "Hasn't 
the time come when we can reach the scientific 
type of mind? And isn't it worth while to do 
so? And if so, what is the best psychological 
line of attack?" 

"The scientist is not by any means hopeless, 
but like many men in your plane, he is over- 
balanced and therefore unbalanced by physical 
considerations. Physical phenomena are of 
vital importance in your life, and their study 

297 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

and analysis has led to a degree of material 
progress which would have been incredible to 
the third — and all but incredible to the second 
— generation back. It is only because scien- 
tists have persisted in the study of physical 
phenomena that you are enabled to understand 
in some part what is now being given you. 
The misapprehension has been that physical 
phenomena alone could be recognized. Those 
who have believed that have denied the exist- 
ence of the greatest and most persistent of 
all forces. Attempts to explain spiritual phe- 
nomena by physical formulae have been found 
unsuccessful by every one save those who 
took refuge in denial of the thing that moved 
them to deny, the eternal and indestructible 
purpose. 

"When to their laboratories scientists bring 
perception of spiritual phenomena exceeding 
any material manifestation known to man in 
strength and significance, then they may hope 
to discover and develop a force beside which 
all known forces are insignificant. Science is 
the ladder by which life may quickly ascend, 
but until science recognizes a spiritual force as 
the one essential force, of which all other forces 
are incidental phenomena, progress must be 
limited." 

"Then, generally speaking," Mr. Kendal 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

said, "perhaps the most effective appeal to 
scientists would be the appeal to scientific 
ambition." 

"Always the most effective means to win 
any man to anything is to appeal to his pur- 
pose. If it be personal, appeal to his vanity. 
If it be progressive, appeal to his eagerness. 
If it be intellectual, pique his curiosity. Scien- 
tists, like others, are divided in purpose." 

"We have been much interested in the de- 
cisive definiteness with which our friends on 
that plane have been able to classify the pur- 
poses of persons here," Mr. Kendal mentioned. 
"Is this as clear to you as physical character- 
istics are to us, and as quickly determined?" 

"Yes, and in much the same way. We see 
motive and intention and their variations as 
you see physical appearance, vitality and its 
variations. We see disintegrating moral fac- 
tors more clearly than you see physical ills. 
We judge of purpose by its vitality and per- 
sistence under strain, precisely as you judge 
of physical health by its vitality under strain 
and by its persistence in spite of occasional 
disease." 

"Then you see disintegrating force as the 
scientist sees germs?" Cass inquired. "As 
disease?" 

"No, we see them as foes. I speak here 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

only of the way we judge purpose. There is 
no diseased purpose. There may be struggle 
between more or less intelligent forces, but in 
using the simile of physical health, I did it in 
a limited sense." 

"Is there an inherent reason for the different 
types of philosophies?" Mr. Kendal now ques- 
tioned. "That is, the Nirvana-oblivion type 
in the Orient, as contrasted with the hell-fire- 
and-brimstone type in the Occident. If in- 
herent, is its cause geographical, intellectual, 
biological, or what?" 

"A little of all of them. Philosophies are 
the outgrowth of conditions, physical, moral 
and geographical — and therefore to some extent 
biological — to a much greater degree than is 
generally recognized. It has been said that 
food makes the man. To a greater degree, 
environment makes the philosopher." 

"May we publish this as coming from you?" 

"Certainly. I am here for that purpose. 
. . . Light and Progress are my purposes, and 
teaching still my work." 

After a few lines of purely personal signifi- 
cance, this was signed: "William James." 



XIV 

Of the messages that may be quoted, there 
remain only a few detached statements, re- 
moved from their personal context, but re- 
produced because of their general interest or 
significance. 

"Don't worry about C " was one bit of 

specific advice, given in March, before any of 
the Lessons had been received. "She will have 
her troubles, but she must dree her own weird. 
You might save her some pain, but life's pur- 
pose may not be taught. It must be fought 

for, with blood and sweat. Let C get 

her wounds in her own way. You may then 
soothe the pain. But don't try to spare her 
the fight. That has to do with the larger ques- 
tions of life and eternity." 

"'Life's purpose may not be taught,' but 
the laws underlying the search for it may be?" 

"Of course. We are trying now to wake the 
world to consciousness that these laws exist. 
Most people, broadly speaking, have forgotten 
them, in the general contempt for laws where 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

they are not enforced, and in the general 
hatred of them where they are enforced in 
oppression and fear." 

A few days later, another person, writing of 
another and much younger girl, said: "She 
may have a hard time over the conflicting 
purposes. Everybody does. But with you 
to give her a foundation, I do not fear for her. 
. . . Her struggles will only make her stronger. 
Do not try to save her from pain. Remember 
that it is her mother who says this. Let her 
meet life fully and work her way upward. 
She will always yield in the end to the sublime 
purpose." 

On a later occasion, this same person said: 
"We help all we can, but even when you want 
us to, we are unwilling to hold back the larger 
and vital development in order to hasten some 
smaller conclusion. Even when the small con- 
clusion is important to you, it must be your 
own choice that helps you; and if the choice 
is wrong at the moment, it still helps in the 
end." 

"She's too sympathetic for her own good," 
was said of another young woman. "She'd do 
the vicarious atonement act for all creation, 
if she could. What she needs is to have this 
purpose business driven into her. Every fel- 
low has to do his own fighting, and his own 

302 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

atonement, and his own climbing, and take 
what's coming to him while he does it. She's 
always trying to soften the path and take the 
swipes herself, and it can't be done. She gets 
the blow and the strain and the struggle, all 
right, but it impedes her and gets the other 
fellow nowhere. It helps nobody to save them 
the consequences of their own choice. The 
way to help is to call to their constructive pur- 
pose and give them a chance. If they choose 
not to take it, then let them take all the con- 
sequence that's coming. If that doesn't teach 
them, there's nothing more to do, except to 
turn them over to somebody who can arouse 
their purpose, if they have any. Anyhow, 
making a buffer of yourself just batters up 
good material for no gain, in force or purpose." 
Again, another person to another group. 
"Let any fighting force do his own fighting. 
Suggest, enlighten, encourage, but don't try 
to carry the burden of another's life. You 
can't hurry their development, and you im- 
pede your own and that of others of your own 
purpose. . . . You are like the fellow in the 
fable, who finished by carrying not only the 
pack, but the donkey, too. It's a very sweet 
and unselfish disposition, but do you think it 
improves the donkey for his station in life? 
Not that I'm calling S a donkey, but like 

303 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

all mankind, lie carries a pack. You can't 
carry both, and lie won't learn to apply his 
force evenly here if you do it for him there. 
Lots of people develop unevenly and have to 
even up somewhere. Why delay the process 
by vicarious labor, especially when it only ex- 
hausts you and doesn't develop his muscles 
any? Selah!" 

"You can train to carry physical 

temptations, if you begin early," a man said, 
writing of his nephew. "Don't let him yield 
to impulse or desire when it is destructive. 
Make him build his body first, as a boy. 
Make him respect it and its promise. That's a 
bully thing for a boy to know at the beginning. 
He reasons from that to other things. A boy 
is a brute first, but a thinking brute. If he re- 
spects the flesh, he respects all things in time." 

"What is my purpose?" a young man asked, 
one day. 

"Building. You are going to be 'him that 
hath.' Build with your possessions. Begin the 
foundation now. Build. . . . Build as a pro- 
ducer, or as a healer, or in any way that 
makes for progress, keeps you growing, de- 
velops forces for construction, and gives the 
other fellows a chance to do their best also. 
. . . Not for yourself alone, but for all who may 
climb by your ladder of opportunity." 

304 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

Maynard Holt, writing to a friend here, 
spoke of him as a good fighter, and when this 
person said that he would not have been 
able to fight at all, but for the little hand of 
a lady on the next plane, Maynard returned: 
"I know you fought hard, though in darkness, 
before you found that hand. That's one reason 
we count on you now. A man who will fight 
continuously in darkness is a . . . a . . ." 
The pencil paused, and after futile efforts to 
proceed, retraced its path, apparently to cross 
out again and again the last letter. We were 
talking and paid no attention to its movement, 
but when it ceased again, we discovered that 
Maynard had drawn a five-pointed star. Then 
he proceeded: "... luminary of force himself, 
when light breaks." 

There were many interesting characteriza- 
tions, both of persons on this plane and of 
those on the next. 

"E is a fine force, but A is a force 

multiplied and refined to power," was said of 
one couple. 

A striking example of the determination of 
our "fan torn friends" to convey their mean- 
ing despite obstacles, was indicated when some 
one had told me, during an interview, of a 
boy's objection to his mother's activity in one 
of the recent "drives" connected with war 

305 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

work, on the ground that it "made her con- 
spicuous." 

"M is an entirely tra . . . trem . . . tr 

. . . normal and tra . . . tremulous youth, where 
his mother and sister are concerned," was his 
father's humorous comment. 

Apparently, in this case, the connection was 
imperfect, no intimation of his meaning reach- 
ing me, and only by altering the form of his 
sentence was he able to get it written. 

"Miss T has much to learn and much 

to suffer before a teaching based on unity of 
force or purpose will reach her forcefully," we 
were told, on another occasion. "She must 
learn the shallows of self before she can sound 
the depths of individuality, in the larger and 
eternal interpretation of the word." 

Following one of the numerous discussions 
of Germany and her purposes, a question about 
a man of German parentage brought this 

reply: "B is American. The national 

taint of docility is not in him." 

The meaning of purpose and its application 
was stated many times in many ways. One 
of the most characteristic of these expressions 
came from a famous humorist. 

"There are things brewing here and among 
you there," he said, "that are going to make 
the wars of the tribes of Hohenzollern, Haps- 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

burg and Mephisto look like a village prayer 
meeting. The carnage of Verdun and Mons 
and the whole show since his little nibs was 
assassinated is a picayune proposition com- 
pared to the losses of time, purpose, force and 
saving grace that we're all going to feel, if 
we can't wake you people up to pull together 
against the devil's crew." 

Some one asked whether a husband and wife, 
not too congenial in this life, were together 
there, and was told that he was " flocking with 
birds of his own feather," and that she had 
"peacefully and tranquilly found her own." 
Another member of this family group was with 
neither of the others, it was said, "because 
she found her very own, for which they were 
only a substitute." 

"Have you seen Jim? Is there any feeling 
about his wife's marrying again?" was a ques- 
tion which will interest many persons. 

"Jim is here and very happy. He has no 
resentment, and wishes Alice to be happy. 
They are both of the forces of progress, but 
not of just the same purpose. They harmonize, 
but do not touch." 

Again, some one asked whether one party 
to an uncongenial marriage regretted the 
other's rejoining him so soon. 

"She didn't," was the reply. "He hasn't seen 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

her yet, and won't. He is willing to work with 
her purpose, but not eager to touch her force." 

"What about Laura?" a woman asked. 

"She is coming to us soon, but do not be 
afraid, dear. She will be tenderly met and 
guided, and will be much nearer you all, much 
happier and more helpful, than she is now. 
Never grieve again for death. It is birth, and 
so happy." 

Within a few weeks, this came to pass. 

When I asked Mary K. for a message for a 
mother bereaved by war, she said: "Tell her 
we will send for her when he has grown accus- 
tomed enough to talk to her. Tell her that he 
is cared for tenderly and guided, and that she 
must not grieve. She hurts him and herself. 
Make her understand that she can help him 
by knowing that he lives and loves her and is 
near her, and that it is part of her work as 
a mother to help him in this ... to find his 
purpose more quickly through her love." 

We were afterward told that he had not yet 
learned the "free communion," but that from 
the moment his mother began to "lift her 
spirit to meet his," this young man's develop- 
ment was hastened. 

Frequently, when telling about these revela- 
tions, I have been asked: "What do they say 
about reincarnation?" 

308 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

"There is no possible reincarnation," Mary 
K. said, when I referred the question to her. 
"That is a dream of the Orient. The idea of 
reincarnation is regressive. Not destructive, 
but deterrent. Not progressive. It is born of 
bodily desire." 

"Is it like the desire of old men for youth?" 

"More. It is a mask, covering material 
desire with spiritual semblance. It is taught 
from this plane by deterrent or partly deter- 
rent forces, lacking free vision." 

In another connection, but with similar 
meaning, David Bruce said: "Some persons 
hide their love of the flesh by an exaggerated 
expression of spirituality, and then think of 
ways of insisting on the flesh." 

Similarly, writing through her husband's 
pencil, Mary Kendal said, when he asked her 
what had become of persons like Caesar, Luther, 
Cobden, Archimedes, and others in general: 
"There is a great difference in the length of 
time people stay in this plane nearest to that 
of the earth, which depends not only on the 
stage of development which they have attained 
when they come here, but also on the character 
of work . they are best fitted to do. If they 
can be of more use in direct or indirect con- 
tact with your plane, they stay here sometimes 
many years, as you measure time; but if they 

21 309 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

are retarded in their development when they 
arrive here, they have a long road to travel 
before they can go on to any other plane. 
There is no such thing as transmigration of 
souls as you understand it, but that idea is 
akin to what actually does happen, in the sense 
that such individualities have to pass through 
stages of development which are relatively 
inferior in status to those that they might 
enter into, coming from your plane, if they 
had made greater progress there, or had fought 
a better fight on that plane." 

When he said that his idea in asking about 
specific individuals was to get concrete in- 
stances by which to check up the general law, 
she returned: "The danger in that is that 
your idea of what those individuals really were 
is very apt to be wrong, and starting from 
wrong premises you could hardly avoid reach- 
ing wrong conclusions. . . . Martin Luther was 
a mixture of purposes. He did great work for 
progress in fighting the conventions and bind- 
ing tendency of ecclesiasticism in his times, 
but he had personal motives which were de- 
terrent, and which he spent a long time in 
working out when he left that plane." Of 
Napoleon she said: "There have been few in- 
stances of greater prostitution of great talents 
and great opportunity in history, and he paid 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

— and is paying — the penalty, or the conse- 
quence." 

To the many inquiries as to how direct 
communication may be established between 
persons here and the dear ones gone before, 
this message of David Bruce's to his wife con- 
tains the briefest and most comprehensive 
answer. 

She said: "I wonder what he's going to tell 
me?" 

"I'm going to tell you to be calm and serene 
of spirit, no matter what seems to be happen- 
ing to disturb you. Most of the disturbing 
factors of individual life on your plane are 
ephemeral — things of the moment and of the 
place. Others are more important than they 
seem. I am not always able to tell you about 
them. It delays you, instead of helping you, 
when the decision is not your own. One way 
that I can truly help when you are troubled 
is by what we can best describe as the free 
communion. When you are perturbed in spirit 
and full of doubt, it is difficult for us to reach 
you. . . . Open the door of spiritual force to 
forces here, and we can always help. That is 
what we hope to establish as a recognized 
truth in your life there. That a force as yet 
unknown to science is operating between the 
planes, and can be developed and used in your 

311 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

life there — to a less degree than in ours, but 
still with great effect. It is for this that we 
work in this communion, which is more definite 
to you now and less so to us. We know the 
limits to which material manifestation like this 
is confined, and are eager to teach you grad- 
ually the freer and fuller way." 



XV 



"A thought that will occur to many persons 
is that the truths we endeavor to teach are not 
entirely new. 

"Truth is fundamental and eternal. There 
is no new truth; there is only new understand- 
ing and application of truth that has always 
existed. No great teacher has ever told new 
t ruth . No great teacher has ever told truth 
i n a new jgay, until the older teachings had 
begun^^o lose their hold on the minds of 
men. No g reat teacher has ever found an 
audience_ _lor_ his new interpretation of truth, 
until the minds of_ men dhad groped through 
darkness toward a light dimly perceived, if 
at alL 

"The time is ripe now for the crystallization 
of new application of eternal truth. Men 
hunger for bread of the spirit, and thirst for 
the waters of eternity. This is the answer of 
eternal forces to their search, and it comes, 
for the first time, not through a teacher or a 
prophet, but through a human instrument 

313 



THE SEVEN PURPOSES 

sensitive to a high degree to the influence of 
the force that is life's motive power. 

"There are many conditions affecting the 
application of that force in these communica- 
tions, that cannot now be explained; many 
conditions influencing its direction, that you 
do not understand. Some day your scientists 
will discover and prove by experiment certain 
laws now unrecognized, and these days of 
doubt and scoffing will disappear hi a past filled 
with denial and discouragement of almost every 
discovery now called modern and progressive. 

"Two things only we have striven for through 
you : to prove to a group of intelligent persons 
that this force exists and may be practically 
applied between your plane and ours, and to 
warn mankind of the nature and eternal im- 
port of impending struggles. We have more 
to tell when they are ready to listen, and upon 
the choice of them who hear this truth the 
immediate progress of the world depends. It 
is a warning to unite and prepare for combat. 

"This is the truth. Heed it. 

"Mary K" 

June 13, 1918. 



THE END 



"3 Li 7 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Nov. 2004 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 
111 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 



